Bitter
by phfina
Summary: Everything in the Army is treated the same: mean. Just ask Lauren, for she's an expert when it comes to that. Oh, and everything in the Army is green. You're not black or white or Asian-yellow. You're green. So are your clothes. All of them ... I mean: I think they all are. I wouldn't know.
1. Deployed

**Chapter summary: **Why is it that some people just cruise through life, given every privilege, and some people, ... well: they try and try and try, but everything always goes to shit? ... Why does that always happen for some people? Some people like me: Lauren Mallory.

* * *

It was a slow night at the bar. It always was a slow night at the bar, but this one was particularly slow, with only Ted, the old barnacle, here, because he had nowhere else to go, I assumed, as I was either _way_ too young for him to be hitting on me, or he was way too old.

He was a friend of my dad's. When my dad was still alive. And now the bar that my dad opened, his pride and joy, was filled with more memories than people, and I tended bar, my inheritance, to honor dad's memory, I guess. And I guess Ted'd kill me if I shut down the fire hazard posing as a rat trap.

The only change I made, that I could make, to the bar was just one concession to modernity: an HDTV that played ESPN-8, the Ocho: all sports, all the time.

And what sports they played! Australian football? (which was actually a pull with so many 'Stralians here in Hawaii) Cricket? Is that even a sport? Rugby? (is that even a sport, or is it actually just a free-for-all mêlée?) Dodgeball?

"If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!" "What?" _WHACK!_

I love that movie!

Especially the scene where the guy goes and visits the girl, and her house was filled with rainbows and unicorns. I'd love to have a house like that. I'd love to decorate the bar like that, but ...

... Yup, you guessed it: Ted would kill me.

I think Dad and Ted served in one of the wars, or 'police actions' like Vietnam, when they were in the Navy together, and I swear they were joined at the hip. I never understood how Mom put up with the constancy of Ted's presence, but we're Filipinos, and we put up with a lot of shit that everybody else won't stand for. That's why they created the 'steward' rating in the Navy: for Filipinos, like my dad, and for the blacks, like the world-famous author Alex Haley, who wrote the book _Roots._ He was a Navy steward. Just because he was black. I bet you didn't know that.

Just like my dad. Just because he was Filipino. But my dad didn't become this world-famous author like Alex Haley. No, the Navy parked him in Hawaii, gave him his precious American citizenship (that was the deal), and he opened up a bar here in Hawaii in this, at the time, nowhere town of Mililani, and here he married a Filipina from the plantation (yup, they had plantations here: where do you think Dole pineapples come from? The can?), and settled in for the good life in America with his 1.3 kids.

That's me, by the way: his daughter, the apple of his eye.

You think he'd have more kids. For Filipinos, you're not done until you have a son, but owning and operating a bar is a _double-_full-time job, and Dad had time to work the bar and to sleep, and his social life was in the bar, and home was the apartment above it.

So that's where I live now. I have to say: I can't complain about the commute.

But the bar may have been more happening when Dad opened it, but even after they paved H2, we've never seen much traffic. Mililani is a family-town, and you don't take the family to a bar that doesn't serve meals. And H2 exists for one reason: to get you to Pearl Harbor. It doesn't take you to Honolulu because if you're a tourist, you're already there.

So why stop off here for a drink when you can get one on base or when you're sunning yourself on the white, sandy beaches of Waikiki?

Dad didn't have a great nose for business when it came for choosing the location of his bar, but ... it was what he could afford to buy and to open, its pace was just about right for him, retiring from the Navy, and he loved the place and pretty much tended bar until the day he died.

So, lots of memories for me here, and it paid for my college education, at UH Manoa, so I tend bar here now, to honor my Dad's memory, at least for now. At least until Ted dies.

Old coot just seems to be going on forever, just as my luck would have it.

I felt I was stuck here, bored to death, in the 'island paradise.'

I wanted to go see the world. Go somewhere _cold,_ for God's sake. Like Alaska! Or Iceland! (there's a name!) or ... Antarctica!

Don't laugh. How many people in the world have been to Antarctica, huh? I'd be, like, the two-hundredth person, _ever,_ to have been to Antarctica.

And I'd be _o-so-popular_ with the boyz when they found out I was from Hawaii.

I hear there's _lots_ to do in Antarctica, like counting penguin eggs, and afterwards you have to warm up, and they like more than just hot cocoa, if you know what I mean. I mean: a cocoa-colored girl in the sack is _just_ what those mad scientists need!

And it has been a _long_ time since I've had me some mad scientist dick. Or any dick for that matter. It's been like a vagillion years, more or less, and I'm afraid it was getting to be 'more' than 'less.'

And Ted was always so liquored up the only dick he had was a limp one, and fucking my dad's friend?

Ew. Okay? Just ew.

"Get you another one, Ted?" I asked him.

He looked away from the TV listlessly to me, then checked his glass. "Nah," he said, "I'm still nursing this one."

It's only a slight exaggeration to say that he'd been nursing that same beer for the last three years.

"'Kay," I said, and let him get back to watching the flat screen.

I wish I could say I got back to doing something, but the brass at the bar shone like it was gold, and you could eat off the floor. And study? Impossible with the TV on, even though it was mindless nothing. I suppose I could take up crocheting, or stamp collecting or something ...

But this was a listless place, and so that's how my life passed. The regulars came, the regulars went, and I'd kick Ted out every night and close up, sleep until it was time to get ready to open up again, and there'd Ted be, just waiting.

He had no life, the old fart Navy retiree, but who was I to talk?

People go crazy, they get 'Island Fever.' You can only drive so far. There's no escape, so you either adjust to the 'Aloha' pace, or you go stir crazy.

Most people adjust, and that was my life, just ... tending bar, and that was it.

_Tingle._

I looked to the door to see who braved the wild outdoor weather of Hawaii ... it was 75°F outside, because it was _always_ 75°F outside ... and nearly dropped my jaw, my bra, and my panties.

In walked a ... girl ... woman, and she was ...

Okay: she was sex on legs. Shoulder-length cornsilk, almost platinum, blond hair, sea-green eyes, and a paleness that screamed Mainlander, and a build on the thin side, like those stupid supermodels these days, but she had a solidity to her that didn't say 'wispy-thin' nor 'wiry-thin,' it said...

It said ... Okay, it said '_wow.'_

She cased the joint, which a laser-sharp focus, checking the location of the back exit and the layout of the bar. She scanned Ted, who didn't even take his eyes off the TV to notice her, and she checked me out.

It was like a threat assessment, and her eyes, taking us both in, said: _no threat._

Then she strode to the bar. She didn't walk like a girl walks. She walked like a guy.

No, guys slouch or shamble, she, on the other hand, walked with power and purpose. She knew exactly where she was going, and she carried herself like she owned the place.

She walked like: _"you touch me, I'll rip off your arm and beat you to death with it."_

In-fucking-timidating.

And, instead of going right up the to bar and sitting, she took the short side of the 'L,' put her back against the wall so she had a full view of the entire bar, with nearly nobody in it, and the front door.

Also, if she just did a slight turn, she'd be around the corner and out the back door in less than a second.

I saw one other person do that, years ago.

He was a professional assassin. He showed me his suitcase that contained the 'tools' of his trade.

That's the only night I ever remember praying for realsies to God.

_"God, please get him out of here, and don't let him come back, ever."_

And that's the only time God answered my prayer for realsies, because the guy left, he didn't come back, and nobody died that night.

That I know of, anyway.

This girl was more obvious than that guy. It was like she didn't care if you knew she was dangerous, or ... something. She just projected mean and angry.

Two other things: she'd be a real beauty, except for the fact that she didn't smile, her eyes, her face, her expression, it was cold, ... not listless, like Ted's.

She was ice.

Not that I was a slouch in the 'beauty' department. Filipinos won Miss World and Miss Universe how many times compared to every other country? Filipino women are the most beautiful women in the world, and I wasn't a knock-out, by Filipino standards, after all: we all looked the same, right? (Not really) But for everybody else?

I got appreciative looks. I know it. I am fine, _damn_ fine, but ... warm, friendly, sweet ... soft, like my skin: a soft brown. Not like the ice princess-assassin sitting at the short end of the 'L,' here.

The other thing about her? Blue jeans and a blue sweatshirt? In Hawaiian weather?

I have a question, by the way: why is it that sailors wear blue uniforms all day, and as soon as they're granted liberty wear blue jeans and a blue shirt, or a white tee shirt, that is: exactly like the uniform they've been wearing?

Because this girl? Obviously Navy: they all walk the same, talk the same, and all hang out with the same buddies from the barracks.

Except that she was alone.

Broke up with her boyfriend today?

I found myself alive with curiosity, not that I particularly cared about this person, just that she was something strange and different, and that rarely happened in our sleepy town of Mililani and much so less here at the bar that had seen its glory days more than a decade ago.

I approached her to ask what she'd be having, but she just said, curtly, "Beer."

And that was that from her.

"Any particular one?" I asked.

She did glance at me on that.

She grimaced. "A Bella." she said.

"Uh, ..."

I didn't know that that was. Or, more correctly: I knew there was no such beer, but it didn't look like she wanted to be corrected. At any rate, not tonight, for some reason.

Tension just ran through her stiff posture.

It was like she just got off the plane from Wall Street and was still in Mainland mode.

I wanted to tell her to chill the fuck out.

She smirked at me with a superior air. "How about a Milwaukee's finest, you know? Just like Bella: Milwaukee's finest."

She settled her back back into the wall and returned to her vacant, sullen look.

She didn't explain further, and I didn't get the joke.

I decided I didn't like this girl. She had 'bitch' written all over her.

I poured out a Pabst Blue Ribbon in a frosted glass and brought it to her.

"Thanks," she said dismissively and took a swig.

"Huh," she said, looking at her glass with surprise.

It was my turn to smirk. "Doesn't taste like your usual Bud light, right?" I said.

She looked up at me. "Yeah," she said, "how'd you know?"

"Don't all you sailors drink Bud?" I countered.

She frowned. "Ain't a squid. I'm Army."

"Oh," I said. "Sorry," I added quickly.

The various military service members were touchy about what branch they were in, and they actually got into fights with each other just because one was Navy and another was a Marine. It was stupid, from my view, after all, same side, right? But it was their ticking time bomb which I wanted no part of.

"Eh," she dismissed my apology uncaringly and took another swig from the glass.

She frowned appreciatively at the taste of the PBR, sharper, more defined, and sweeter than the run-of-the-mill standard taste of Bud.

Not that I'm knocking Bud: it's made me a lot of money over the years, even with my rather small and select clientele.

"Start a tab for you?" I prompted.

"Sure," she said.

I waited.

"Under what name, please?" I pushed slightly.

She drug her eyes from the TV to look at me with annoyance. "Lauren," she said, then went back to watching TV.

"'Kay," I said quietly and left her, taking the hint.

...

Lauren, unlike Ted, was a drinker. She didn't chug, but she went through three beers in the same amount of time Ted took three sips from his glass. And Lauren tended her drink, as soon as her glass was empty, she ordered another one, she just kept the flow going, lost in her reverie.

She got up to pee after the third, then signaled me for another.

"A bump this time, too," she said.

"Bourbon?" I asked.

"Sure," she said.

"Maker's Mark okay?" I asked.

"Is it good?" she asked back.

"Yes,"

This came from Ted.

Lauren looked over at him, surprised as I was that he had some life in him at all.

"Okay," she said, addressing me now, "a shot for me and one for the gentleman."

"'Kay," I said, and Ted tipped his head to her.

That was it. That was the extent of their communication, but in that millisecond connection, I could tell they knew each other: they both served, and they were family, just like that.

And I envied that in them, that they could just automatically do that, without a word being exchanged, and I was automatically an outsider, a civilian, and had no part in their world.

I poured the shots and brought them to them and got Lauren another PBR.

"Another beer, Ted?" I asked.

He surprised me by saying, "Yes." So I took his glass, dumped out the tepid beer and pulled him another Blue Moon.

"Cheers," Lauren said to Ted and raised her shot glass.

Ted nodded, raised his shot glass and just moistened his lips with the bourbon.

Lauren didn't. She dropped the shot glass into her beer and downed both fast and hard, slamming her glass on the bar.

"That was good," she declared. "Another?" she asked.

"You driving?" I asked.

Lauren shrugged. "That's my 'stang in the parking lot, yeah."

"Well, then," I said, "that'd be a 'no,' unless you're riding a cab back to base."

Lauren's face went sour. "It's just six miles to Schofield barracks!" she snapped back.

I laughed. "Yeah, six miles for you to get yourself into a car wreck, and for me to lose my license permanently. I am _not_ spending time in the poke because of your 'six miles' gets you killed, sister!"

Lauren looked miffed. She measured my resolve for a second, and was further displeased to see I meant what I said.

"I can go back on base and get smashed there," she reasoned. "They won't cut me off there..." she wheedled.

Like I cared. "Yeah, and you can walk back to your rack after you do that. But you sure as hell are not driving off from my God-damn bar after you get smashed here."

She fumed. "Okay, whatever," she relented petulantly, "I'll take a cab. May I have another beer and a bump now, please?"

"After you hand over your keys," I said, not budging.

This surprised her. "Can't," she said.

"Well," I shrugged.

"I mean," she said, "I'm being deployed tomorrow. I leave my car here, it stays here for eighteen months on the outside."

"You're being deployed tomorrow?" I said surprised.

"Yeah," she said. "Afghanistan. Six months."

"Then why did you say 'eighteen months'?" I asked.

"The Army told me that last time I had a 'six month' deployment there."

She put the 'six months' in derisive quotes with her emphasis.

"Oh," I said. "You're being _re_deployed to Afghanistan?"

"Yeah," she said and shrugged.

"Ooh, bad luck!" I said, wincing.

"Why?" she asked. "I volunteered."

I blinked. I didn't know what to say to that.

You see pictures come out of Afghanistan. It looks hot and desolate, and the soldiers look haggard, worn down from the constant stress of waiting for an attack that never comes.

Except when it does, and then you see the pictures of what's left of the very few soldiers who manage to survive a suicide blitz.

She read all this in my face and shrugged, sighing, and pulled out her keys.

"Another?" she said.

"'Kay," I said weakly, taking her keys off the bar, and pulling another PBR for her. I brought the beer and a fresh shot.

"This one's on the house," I said, setting the drinks in front of her.

"Nah-uh," Lauren said, shaking her head.

"No," I said, "you ..."

"Girlie," she interrupted, "with my combat pay, I have more money than I know what to do with. Just let me pay for my drinks, okay? At least that's one thing I can do right by in my life, huh, and just leave it at that, okay?"

"Okay," I said weakly. It looked like she didn't want an argument here, so I just agreed.

That's what we Filipinos did. We just agree.

But let's see if she could figure out her bar tab when I stopped adding the drinks she ordered to it.

Or maybe I just wouldn't ask for her to settle up. She was getting pretty drunk. Maybe she wouldn't even notice.

That's something I could do for her.

I mean: going to Afghanistan tomorrow? Free drinks would be the _least _I could do.

I instantly disliked her less. Her sullenness made more sense now that she was headed toward a combat zone, 'demilitarized' or not.

"You've been in combat?" I asked.

Lauren gave me a surly look. "Yeah," she said. She downed the shot, quickly, sliding it back to me. "Don't wanna talk about it," she added curtly.

I took the shot glass. "Another?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said, sullen again. But then she added: "Please," making the effort.

I took the shot glass poured her another shot.

I thought women weren't allowed in combat. Wasn't that against the law, or something? But wasn't there news about women who were drivers or corpsmen getting shot, and the Army now issuing them guns, too, and ...

I didn't know what was what about it, except that the people who went to Afghanistan came back ... different. Quieter. Or angrier. Or both. Or non-functional with PTSD.

Or that one guy who came back and shot a bunch of people, including his best friend, and then killed himself.

I wondered what Lauren was like before she went to Afghanistan.

Younger, probably. Much younger. She was a kid, I bet, just a year or two out of high school, but she looked old-old-old with her bitter attitude, that put me 5-10 years older than her, but she's the one who looked world-weary, whereas I was really just starting with my life: bored to tears here, yeah, but wanting to go explore the world.

Lauren had already done that, and it looked like, for her, exploring the world involved being in the shit ... and she _volunteered_ to go back into it?

I was like: _why?_

I brought her the shot, and she downed it quickly, grimacing as the alcohol hit her.

She slammed the shot glass down again, but she held her hand on the bar for a bit, steadying herself, and she held her beer glass with a death grip.

She wouldn't look at me, she just watched the Cricket game on ESPN-8, the Ocho, and nursed her beer.

I didn't ask if she wanted another. Not this time.

...

"Ted," I said. "Time." and I turned off the flat screen.

"Yeah," he said regretfully, and he put his unfinished beer, and his mostly unfinished shot of bourbon on the bar.

"Well," he said, looking at Lauren, then back to me. "G'nite."

I didn't ask him to settle up. Ted had a running tab. One day he'd pay up, and that'd be like winning the lottery ticket with the windfall I'd get from that payment.

And it be like winning a lottery ticket, because it'd never happen.

Not that I could ask him to pay. He's my dad's friend. And I'm Filipino. We don't ask. Not family, nor friends of family.

Ted hopped off his stool and hobbled toward the front door.

I escorted him to the exit, seeing him off.

He'd be fine. He lived less than a block from the bar. He didn't have a car. He didn't need one.

I returned to the bar.

"Miss," I said, "call you a cab?"

"Yeah," Lauren said lifelessly.

I picked up the bar phone and scanned through the rolodex for one of the cab company's numbers. As I was doing that, I glanced at Lauren.

Her head was on her arm on the bar.

I went up to her. "Miss?" I said.

No response. Her eyes were closed.

"Miss?" I prompted.

Still no response.

I sighed.

"Hey!" I shouted to her. "When do you have muster?"

She stirred, slightly, but didn't open her eyes. "Zero-seven-hundred hours," she mumbled thickly, but pronouncing each syllable with care.

"And you have to be in uniform by then?" I shouted.

"Uh," she assented.

I looked down at her, glowering.

"You can't go back to base now like this," I muttered.

I drummed my fingers on the bar. _"Shit!"_ I cursed, then reached a decision. "Okay, soldier, let's get you to bed so you can sleep off the alcohol, huh?"

No response. Her face was both gaunt and pale: she looked pitiful, actually.

_"Ah!"_ I growled and came around the bar and wrapped her arm around my shoulder, and lifted her up to walk-carry her upstairs to my bed.

"Holy crap, you weigh a ton!" I complained. You think a girl this thin would weigh a lot less, but no.

"Muscle mass," Lauren mumbled as she staggered with me upstairs, not even opening her eyes.

I don't think she even knew where she was now, or who she was with. Did she think she was home?

"Okay," I said, panting heavily now, and dropped her, maneuvered her onto my bed.

She hit the bed like a sack of potatoes.

"Let's get your sneakers off," I said.

"Nnn!" she complained blearily. "Wolf spiders."

"You're not in the desert yet, okay? You're inside," I explained, then added quickly, blushing: "In my bedroom, got it?"

She gave no response, being still, so I undid her shoelaces.

I looked at down at this soldier girl lying on my bed. She laid sprawled across it.

I frowned. "Okay," I said annoyed, "look. This is _my_ bed I'm _letting _you sleep in, okay, but you're _not_ gonna hog the whole God-damn thing, okay?"

No response, so I glowered down at her, pissed off at her drunken ingratitude.

_"Hmmphf!"_ I huffed and stomped around and slammed drawers as I changed into my pajamas, both self-conscious that I was changing in front of a stranger, but too tired, myself, to care.

Bathroom. Sink. Splashed face. Brushed teeth. Examined myself critically in the mirror.

_I'm pretty,_ I said to myself angrily. _Maybe not as pretty as Miss Beauty Queen out there, but I'm pretty._

I don't know why I felt self-conscious, and I hated myself for feeling this way.

Bed.

I heaved a sigh and edged into my bed at the very, very edge of my bed, then proceeded to shove with all my might against her.

_"Move over!"_ I snarled.

She ... _kind_ of moved over.

I had room, _finally,_ and _thank you,_ in my own God-damn bed, and, _bonus! _my butt cheek wasn't hanging over the edge any more.

Thank God for small miracles.

I looked up at the ceiling. A gecko was ambling across it. It paused and _click-click-click_ed out a call, then continued it's trek across my ceiling.

"I'll wake you up at five-thirty am, okay?" I said.

"'Kay," Lauren answered indistinctly.

I glowered at her, and threw my arm over my eyes, not wanting to be touching her, but not being able not to, as she was hogging the whole God-damn bed, just sprawled over it, nearly spread-eagle across it.

I tried to sleep. I'd have to wake up _really_ frikken early tomorrow, and I am _not_ a morning person.

It was quiet.

Then, quietly, her voice. Sad. Forlorn. "Why is it," she asked, "that some people are, like, given ... _everything _at birth, and some people just ... just one thing, and the ... the rest of their lives ... I mean ... it just _sucks. _It's just like ... over, and there's nothing you can do, no matter how much you try. You just try and try and try, so hard, and everything just goes to shit, every single time, for the rest of your life. And that's it. Just sucks. Just sucks for you. Why is that?"

I thought about what she said, but I didn't have an answer. "I don't know," I said quietly.

"And then there's Bella," Lauren said sadly, angrily. "I mean: _why!_ She was _nothing!_ Okay? _Nothing!_ But Rosalie chooses _her! Bella!_ I mean, _seriously? _And I ... we were friends from kindergarden, and along comes Bella out of nowhere, and Rosalie ... I mean. We were _friends!_ We were _best friends! _And who the fuck was Bella anyway? Trailer trash! But Rosalie sees her and ..."

"I don't ..." I said, confused. "I don't understand."

"You know what kills me?" Lauren continued as if she didn't hear me. Maybe she didn't. "You know what really fucking kills me? It's me. It's my own God-damn fault. Bella's like, 'Oh, can I get a ride?' to me, and I'm like, 'Uh, no.' Just no. Go fucking die, bitch, and Rosalie's there, just watching, and I'm laughing later, telling her how Bella keeps begging for rides from school every day because she lives out of town and'd be bussed to Hartford, and I'm like, that's where _those people_ belong, not at THS, and Rosalie was like, 'Oh,' so I thought we were done with that, but then Rosalie puts out the word, 'Nobody give Bella a ride anymore,' and I was like: _'YES!'"_

Lauren paused.

"I was like: 'yes!'" she repeated quietly. "That'll teach her. Problem solved. Kid can walk for, what, one day before she gives up and goes where she belongs, but then ..."

Her voice became hurt and angry. "But then I see it. I see Bella getting a ride in _Rosalie's SUV?_ And I'm like, ... _the fuck?"_

"And then ..." Lauren was sad now. Quiet. "And then ..."

She was quiet for a long time. "How come," she asked in a small voice, "you never know what you wanted ... until you see her with somebody else?"

"Oh," I said, and it dawned on me. "You're gay...?"

I didn't really ask it. But I did. But I didn't.

"No," Lauren said. "Who? Me? The class slut? I fucked every dick there was to fuck at Tolland, and any boy I wanted, I got, and I got me some _good ..."_ She was quiet. "Well, it was good."

"But ...?" I said the word she didn't.

"But ..." she said.

And was quiet again.

"Then, that. And ..." she continued, disjointed. "Then I went off to the Army, and they went off to college, and I spent my first deployment in Afghanistan, and I was like ... 'This is it, Lauren, this is your fucking life,' and I ..."

She was quiet again.

"Rosalie knew," she whispered. "I was gonna ... I was so close to ..."

She gulped.

"And that's there if you want it. My unit was hit. Fucking mujahideen. And ... and Mike, he saw the kid, and he shoved me down, and he ..."

She sniffled. "Fucking hamburger. Mike and ..." she gasped, "and fucking half my unit, fucking meat paste, but stupid, fucking Mike ..."

Lauren was crying now. "He ... they call'm frag 'nades 'cause they fragment, and Mike ate that fucking 'nade with his body, the dumb fuck, so I just got cut up bad, but ..."

"But ..." she gasped, "Rosalie knew. Rosalie knew somehow I wanted ta ... ta off myself, and she ..."

Lauren swallowed. "She sent me pictures. She sent me pictures of ... Bella. Her fucking Bella's ass with a big-old purple strap-on, and she made Bella spread her cunt lips, and she said ... she said. 'C'mon home, Lauren. Come home in one piece, and you can have yourself the sweetest cunt in the world. You know you want her bad!'"

"Rosalie knew," Lauren whispered. "And I ... I ..."

Lauren was quiet. "And I came home, and God! Did I ever ..."

"Fucking Bella Swan," Lauren said sadly, "was the most incredible fuck that I ever had in my life, and God! did I ever fuck her, but ... but ... but ... it wasn't that. It wasn't enough. I ... I ... I'm not a slut, ... hahahaha."

She laughed in despair, and it was the saddest sound I ever heard.

"I guess I'm not, 'cause I found out I didn't wanna fuck her, the best fuck of my life ... I wanted to love her. _Bella Swan!_ I wanted to love her, and I wanted her to love me."

Lauren was quiet.

"But she didn't. She doesn't. She loves Rosalie, and Rosalie loves her, and she only fucked me because Rosalie wanted her to. She fucked me out of love for Rosalie. I had her pussy, and it was fucking incredible, but her heart ... her heart belongs to Rosalie, and I couldn't touch it."

Now I was confused. I thought she said she loved Rosalie and hated Bella for stealing her friend away from her, but now she says she loves this Bella?

"And ... and ... and now I'm fucked," Lauren said bitterly. "'Cause fucking guys. _Ugh. Ugh. Okay, we're done._ And ... I went on craig's list, I ... went on message boards. But it's just so fucking weird. I'm _not_ looking for a submissive. I mean, Bella is a fucking little fucking mousy submissive and a fucking amazing fuck! But submissives? _Eh!"_ Lauren snorted. "They want sex, or they want to be dominated, but they're playing a game, too, and I don't want that. I want to love somebody, and I want to be loved back, and ... how can you ask that from somebody? _'Hey, I'm Lauren. I wanna fuck the shit out of you, and totally fucking own your ass, and oh, I want to love you, and I want you to love me, like, forever, okay? You up for that?'"_

"Um," I put in quietly, but firmly, "I'm not gay."

Lauren was quiet for a moment.

"Thanks for the info," she said dryly.

"Just so you know," I added defensively.

"Yeah," she said, her voice empty, "got it. Thanks."

I was quiet. I felt shamed, like telling her I wasn't gay was an insult, or something.

But I didn't want this confession of hers to be a reason for her to maul me, and I did not want to have her all over me when I did not swing that way, thank you. It's not right nor natural.

I mean, in the Philippines, I hear, anyway, there are 'guy-girls' and 'girly-girls' and they ... whatever in college and when they go to work in the factories. It's like, really common, but not 'open' like in the States, it's just ignored, but ...

But I'm not like that. I'm a normal girl, not a ... whatever you want to think Filipinas are like: weak, submissive, and naïve.

I'm not like that.

Lauren sniffed sadly. "Bella and Rosalie. They're like ... they're like _given_ this gift. They love each other, and ..."

"And ..." she said.

"And ... I want that. And I never had that. In my life. Ever."

Lauren was quiet.

"And I never will. Ever."

Then: "And ..."

She became quiet again.

Then her voice was resolved: "And ... this time, this deployment, ..."

I waited for her to finish.

Her even breath told me that she had finished.

Lauren was asleep.

I nudged against her. "This deployment ... what?" I asked.

No answer, just her even breaths.

I nudged again, harder. "This deployment, ... _what?"_ I demanded.

Nothing from her, now her mouth was open and she started to snore, softly.

I was pissed, hating her, wanting to know the 'what_,' _but afraid I already knew what the 'what' was.

I fell asleep. Pissed and angry at this stranger who strode into my life, dumped on me her shit, and then ...

And then was going to take herself out of my life again, just like that, by taking herself out of the picture.

Another American hero. Another war stat that nobody knows nor cares about.

Nor loves.

Ever.

I slept.

...

"Lauren?" I said quietly, "wake up."

I reached over and touched her shoulder.

_"FUCKING RAGHEAD FUCKING DIE!" _she screamed.

And then something flashed and I felt ... nothing.

I felt a whisper against my neck, and it felt like ... air, like a breeze.

Lauren had mounted my chest, and a blade, sharp, wicked and deadly, was in her hand and poised to strike.

Oh, and blood was dripping off it. I wondered, idly, was that my blood?

Lauren's eyes were wild.

Then she looked down at me, utterly confused.

"Who the fuck are you?" she demanded.

"Uh..." I supplied helpfully, feeling light-headed.

Lauren looked down from my eyes, and then her eyes widened in shock.

"Holy ..." she said, then: "Oh, God. Fuck."

She quickly lifted my head, pulled my pillow out from under me and then pressed it to my shoulder.

"Ow," I said weakly.

"Constant pressure," she commanded, pressing my hand against the pillow. "You have to keep constant pressure against the wound so you don't go into shock, you hear me?"

I looked up at her and smiled lightly. "Too late for that," I whispered.

"Fuck," Lauren snarled angrily. "Fuck, fuck, _FUCK! Fuck! _We gotta get you to a hospital right away. They won't let you onto the barracks, fuck! Where's the nearest hospital?"

"Wahiawa," I said thickly, "I think."

She looked down at me. "Right," she said. "Hold on and keep pressure, you got me?"

She hoisted me up like I were a feather, and she was racing me down the stairs.

"You know where Wahiawa is, haole?" I asked.

Lauren hit the ground floor running. "Schofield barracks is _in_ Wahiawa, you dumb shit!"

"Oh," I said. "There's that."

We got to her car.

It was a muscular gun-metal grey Mustang. The tires were wider than me.

"My keys," Lauren said desperately searching her pockets. "Where are my God-damn keys?"

"Upstairs in my bedroom," I said. "On my hope chest."

Lauren had deposited me on the dirt and was running when I said 'upstairs,' but she screeched to a stop when I said her keys were on my hope chest.

She regarded me coolly, then smirked. "I thought you said you weren't gay."

And then she turned and ran.

"Ha. Ha," I called after her. "Very funny."

Lauren was back in a flash, unlocked her car, scooped me up and shoved me in the passenger seat.

We left fifteen feet of rubber on the road as she pealed out of the parking lot of the bar, her mustang's engine roaring like it was the trump of doom.

I looked over at Lauren, her face was intense and she was actually leaning into her driving, as if the force of her will could actually make her car go even faster than what it was going already.

I think I heard the sonic boom a few seconds ago.

"You know, haole," I told her levelly, "cops here fine double for whites, triple for blonds, and quadruple for military. They hate you white people, you do know that."

Lauren didn't slow down at all. "If the cops chase us, they won't catch us 'til we get to the hospital anyway, and then I'll just flash them my tits and get you inside while they're still stunned."

"Huh," I said, a bit stunned myself at her self-confidence.

We sped along.

"You know," I said, "if this is the way you pick up girls, maybe that's why you're having problems in the love department. Maybe you could go with the more generic approach of asking the girl's name first. Her hobbies, maybe? If she wants to watch a movie, you know? That kind of stuff."

Lauren did glance from the road for a brief second.

"What is your name?" she said.

"Ha. Ha." I rolled my eyes. "Funny."

"No," she said, intensely, "I'm serious. What actually is your name?"

"You ever turn down the intensity to something below eleven?" I quipped.

"You ever tell anybody your name?" she retorted.

"Sophie," I said.

"'Sophie,'" she tasted the name, pondering it. "Huh," she said, "I li-..."

"Maria Josefina Gabriella Sophia Ocampo de Guzmán."

"Uh, okay," Lauren said, nonplussed. "Uh, wow!"

"Yeah," I said. "Papa called me 'Gabby' when I was little, but I hat-... but I didn't like that name, so it's just 'Sophie' now, nobody calls me by my full name, ... like: ever."

Lauren's face was intense.

I was blabbing. I do that when I'm nervous. Or becoming faint with blood-loss, it turns out.

"We're here," Lauren said, and screeched to a stop in front of the Wahiawa General Hospital.

She raced out of her seat around the car and lifted me bodily out of my seat.

"Corpsman!" she bellowed as she ran us to admission. "Corpsman, on the double! I have a severe neck injury that needs immediate treatment!"

I looked up at Lauren. Her head was limned in light. Like she were an angel, or something. A stupid, dumb-fuck, deadly, military angel.

...

Well, that was exciting. I kept trying to tell people I was all right, and people kept running around like _they_ were the chickens with their heads cut off.

Maybe I could ask Lauren to do just that: cut off everybody's head who was running around or leaning over me, checking up on me, poking me, prodding me, wheeling me every which way they could.

If she did that, there's be a lot more quiet in the hospital today, I tell you what.

...

Lauren.

"I have to go," she said.

"I know." I answered.

"No, you don't understand. I miss formation, it's a missed movement, and I get court martialled. I have to go," she insisted.

"I know," I said, and pointed to my chest. "Navy brat."

My hand felt very, very heavy. It was hard to control.

"Ah," Lauren said.

She looked down. She held up a piece of paper to my face.

It was her id: SPC Lauren Mallory. She has also written in below the photocopy of her id the following: 1st squadron, 91st Calvary Regiment.

_Well_, I thought, _now I know her last name, too._

"This is my military id," she said.

_Great, _I thought. _She thinks I'm a three-year-old._

"I wrote my unit and my commanding officer here. I left my insurance information with the hospital, too, but ..."

She looked away.

"If you wish to press charges, simply contact the Department of the Army and provide this information, and they'll get the relevant information from you and the hospital here, and ..." She scowled.

"Fucking court martialled in Kabul. Fucking great," she muttered.

"Press charges?" I asked, confused.

Lauren sighed and _tsk_ed. "Sophie, I _have_ to go now."

"I know," I said.

I wondered if she were stupid. I _told_ her I knew, like, three times, already.

"Okay," she said brusquely. "Look, you're in shock. You're confused. When you get your head straight again, here's my info, then do what you have to. Okay? Okay. 'Bye."

She turned to go.

"Lauren." I called.

"What?" she snapped, turning back.

"Don't do anything stupid, or brave, or, you know, whatever to get yourself killed, okay?"

"What are you talking about?" she snapped angrily.

I ignored her pretend-ignorance. She knew what I was saying.

"I'll be pissed," I said. "And you'll never know if you asked my name, and asked me if I wanted to see a movie with you, if I would say 'yes' or 'no,' would you? If you killed yourself, you'd never know."

Lauren glared at me, furiously. "Do not toy with me, okay, Sophie? Besides, you said it. 'I'm not gay,' you said, so don't play me like this. Don't say it if you don't mean it, 'cause I won't ..."

"You said you weren't gay before, either, right?" I insisted. "So what do I know? And if you don't come back, you'll never know what might've happened, right?"

Lauren shut her eyes for a second, tightly, then stamped her foot in fury. "Okay. Whatever. Gotta go. 'Bye!"

She stormed out. Her back tight. Furious.

"'Kay," I whispered, sadly. "'Bye."

The doctor came in. The name on her tag was 'Lam.' She was an older, beautiful Chinese woman with long, silky-black hair all the way down her back. She glanced after Lauren with wise eyes.

"What's her problem?" she asked.

I rolled my eyes: "Haoles," I explained.

Dr. Lam smiled warmly and chuckled.

* * *

**A/N: **See, ...

No, wait. First things first.

This is a side story to my story _Ridden._ It's about Lauren after she goes off to join the Army after High School graduation.

Okay. Now.

See, _this_ is why I didn't want to write about Lauren in _Ridden, _see? I write about Lauren, I think about Lauren, then she stands up and says, 'you know, I'm not a bitch. I mean, I am, but ... but you just can't sh!t on me like everybody else does, ... like Steph did, 'cause there's what everybody thinks about me, and then there's me, and you gave Rosalie a fair shake when nobody else would, and you're just gonna play to the stereotype with me?'

See?

And how come is it that Lauren _never_ got a chance? She was just a first-class, one-dimensional bitch in _Twilight._ I mean, even Rosalie got her _Eclipse_, chapter 7, but Lauren? Nothing.

Well, _Lauren_ isn't going take the bitch-slapping she's gotten sitting down, and she let me know, in no uncertain terms, of just that.

Joy. A Lauren Mallory fanfic.

What next, `phfina? Ya gonna write an ExB "Oh, Edward!" "Oh, Bella!" fic, too?

_Shudders._ Okay, I don't see myself sinking _that_ low.

Oh, and watch this video: armytimes-dot-com-slash-VideoNetwork/2973148502001/US-Troops-Celebrate-Christmas-in-Afghanistan&odyssey=mod|video

That's our service men and women having Christmas in Afghanistan.

p.s. "Haole" is the Hawaiian term to describe white people from the 'Mainland.' Yes, it's derogatory, but, depending on usage, not necessarily vicious, it's more like, 'oh, well, those crazy white people, always rushing about and always getting themselves into trouble; they need to get into "Aloha"-time.' Like that. Sometimes.


	2. A Proper Send Off

**Chapter summary:** Wait. What? She _isn't _assigned to Schofield Barracks? She _lied to me?_ Okay, why is the room spinning like that? That's not good, is it?

* * *

The next few hours were a whirl of boredom and waiting, but I didn't notice the time passing at all, because I was in a light-headed fog.

There wasn't really anything wrong with me, though, so after being stitched up and given a pain-medication prescription I was free to go, unless I wanted to check into the "hospital hotel" at what? one-thousand dollars a night? No, thank you.

One thing floored me. Lauren had left her information at the hospital for payment, listing me as a dependent. Her address was a military one, listing her regiment and company, with an APO AE with a 9-digit zip code.

I didn't know what "APO AE" meant ... maybe "Army Post Office"?

She was going to get socked with a huge bill when she arrived in Afghanistan. I wanted to change the billing information to me, but I suddenly got super-embarrassed and felt everyone was looking at me, and how do I explain the change? A change of address? A change of person?

I left the hospital quickly, blushing, and angry at myself that I let her push me around, using my own shame against me.

It was almost as if she knew it would play out like this.

And she told me not to "play" her, but I was the one who felt played. Knifed, yes, but played, somehow.

I took the bus home.

When I went up to my bedroom, dead tired (bleeding out, medicated and stitched up can do that to a girl, I guess), I got the second shock of my life that morning ... now afternoon.

On my hope chest were five twenty-dollar bills, crisp, probably, I guessed, money Lauren withdrew right from the ATM for her night out.

I ... was ... _pissed!_

The hell? What was that for? Was she paying for her drinks? This was _way_ too much money! Or did it imply payment for something else? _Services rendered?_ There _were_ no services rendered! I told her I wasn't like that, so _nothing happened!_ Not that I know of. Did she take advantage of me while I was asleep? And then leave a tip afterwards?

I glared at the money for a second, panting, gripping my hands to tight fists.

Then I forced my eyes away, and tried to get a grip.

Maybe she was just guestimating how much she owed for the drinks last night? I mean it was way too much, but she never did see the bill, so how could she know how much she drank, and how much it was?

Maybe that was it.

I opened my top drawer and angrily swept the money in and closed the drawer with a snap.

As if I needed her money! I was doing just fine, thank you! Did she think I was some charity case!

_God, Sophie!_ I shouted at myself, _you're really going off the deep end! Get a grip!_

I really was, wasn't I?

But I couldn't get ... everything out of my head.

I couldn't get her out of my head, how she was flying off to Afghanistan to get herself killed!

And now I knew why she volunteered to go.

I raced to my laptop and looked up how I could contact her.

She left her address, she left her commander.

She didn't leave her phone number. Maybe she assumed I didn't want to call her. Maybe she didn't want me to.

I called Schofield barracks.

"Good afternoon, Schofield barracks main office, Private Johnson speaking, may I help you please, sir or ma'am?"

"Uhn, ..." the polite, professional tone of the soldier on the other side of the line confused me. I didn't know what I was supposed to say.

"Um," I floundered, "I'm trying to reach a soldier stationed there?"

"Yes, ma'am," the soldier replied, not in the slightest bit ruffled. "May I have the soldier's name, please?" she asked coolly.

"Yes," I said, finally having an answer I could give and not feel like a fool. "It's, lessee," I said, looking at the paper Lauren gave me, "Ess-pee-see Lauren Mallory?"

"Yes, ma'am," the soldier said, "Specialist Lauren Mallory, I'll look up her company and provide you with that information."

"Oh, I have that already. She's with the ..." I checked the paper again, "1st squadron, 91st Calvary Regiment."

The line went quiet.

"Um ..." I essayed.

"Ma'am," the private said, "91st isn't stationed at Schofield barracks. Are you sure you have the correct information?"

I didn't understand what she just said to me. "What?" I asked.

"Schofield houses the 25th infantry," the girl explained patiently, "not the 91st calvary." She paused. "Are you sure you have the soldier's information correct?"

I couldn't believe it. "But she said ..." I breathed, and then I broke off.

I could not believe it. She deliberately lied to me? _Why?_ Why would she do that? She photocopied her military ID, so there'd be no way that I couldn't find out her command eventually.

"She said," I tried again, taking several deep breaths to calm myself. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve angrily.

My neck and shoulder twinged at the sudden movement, and I winced.

"She said," I said, my voice quavering and my body trembling, "that she was stationed at Schofield barracks and was being shipped out to Afghanistan ... today, in fact."

"Oh," the soldier said in understanding, "we do quarter soldiers being deployed, so she's not stationed here, but may have been here on TDY."

I breathed out a huge sigh. I didn't know what 'TDY' meant, but I did know it meant that Lauren was actually at Schofield, and wasn't lying to me.

"Oh, okay," I said, relieved.

Suddenly, I had to sit down.

I did, ... kind of. I fell to the floor.

Then everything went black.

...

"Miss?"

I blinked. My throat felt God-awful. I wanted to swallow, but there was nothing there.

"Miss," a Hawaiian man was standing over me. Paramedic.

I could tell he was Hawaiian, he was as wide as he was tall, and he emanated the patient, gentle nature that only Hawaiians can.

"Miss," he said again, "are you all right?"

"Where am I?" I asked stupidly.

"You are home, miss," he said. He gave my address.

I was lying on the floor, the phone still gripped in my hand. I looked at it; the line was dead.

I tried to prop myself up.

"Easy, miss, easy," the man said, resting his hand as large as my chest on my shoulder.

My uninjured shoulder.

"Thirsty," I whispered.

The man looked up and nodded to his partner who ambled over to my kitchenette and got a glass of tap water.

I noticed I had an IV in.

"What's this," I looked at the tube.

"Sugar water," he said, "it's standard, miss, to treat hypoglycemia and dehydration."

"Ah," I said.

His partner propped my head up and gave me the water in small sips.

"Miss," the man said, "I need your permission to transport you to ER."

"Wahiawa hospital?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"I just came from there." I said.

He was quiet, then nodded. "I have your permission to transport you to the hospital?"

I closed my eyes for a second. "There's nothing wrong with me. I just fainted, right?"

The man frowned. "I can't give a prognosis, miss. That's why you should go to the ER."

"Yeah," I said. Of course he couldn't tell me I was all right, because if I wasn't he'd get his ass sued off.

"I have your permission?" he asked in clarification.

"No," I said. "I'll be fine. I just need rest, is all."

And I didn't need to be doing was to be calling Lauren and getting all worked up about where she was or wasn't stationed.

He looked unhappy.

"How did you ...?" I began to ask. "Oh," I said, "they called 911, right?"

"Yes, miss," he said, "we were routed here on an emergency response call."

I sighed, leaning my head back. "Tired," I mumbled, "can I go to bed now, please?"

The EMT looked more displeased. "Please let the drip finish," he scolded.

"'Kay," I said.

It took a while. The EMT removed the IV, and provided support for me to clamber into bed.

"What time is it?" I asked weakly.

The EMT checked his watch. "Four-fourty-five," he said.

Of course. Opening time. Ted'd be walking over already.

"Uh," I said.

"Miss," he said, "I strongly recommend you go to ER when you are able or you receive a consultation from your doctor."

"Okay," I said, "thank you." I was eager to get them out of my place. I had to open up the bar, ... and I had to pee.

It actually took a while. The Hawaiian wrote out receipt for services rendered. An emergency response? One hundred fifty bucks! And he had me sign and initial that I declined transport to the hospital.

I did so from my bed.

"Please do rest and stay hydrated, miss," the large Hawaiian EMT said with concern in his voice.

"'Kay," I said, and put my head on my pillow.

I was relieved to see them go and waited for them to drive off, their red-red lights flashing then disappearing as they cut them off as they drove off.

I sighed a big, tired sigh and clambered out of bed, staggering, almost crawling to the bathroom.

...

I unlocked the front door to the bar.

Ted was standing right outside, of course.

"Everything okay?" he asked, frowning with concern.

"Just dandy," I said, and turned to the bar, holding myself carefully erect.

I pulled him a Blue Moon without asking.

"Nice scarf," he said.

"Thanks," I slid his glass across the bar to him.

No, not like the Westerns, silly, just across from my end to his, all of, oh, one foot.

"Colorful ...," he remarked, then grasped at words: "shiny. Is it silk?"

Wasn't Ted just the fount of words today?

"Yeah," I said, "I guess."

Ted shrugged and took a swig of his beer. "It's nice. Makes you look pretty."

I gave him a glare of _drop it!_ but then I sneaked a peek in the mirror.

I did look pretty, I guess. Huh.

But, much more importantly, the cut and stitches were hidden from view.

"Got a date?" he asked.

I stamped my foot and _tsk_ed. "Ted! No, okay?"

_Men!_ Could they, like, ever take a hint?

"Uh," he said, "okay," and took another sip of his beer, turning to the TV.

_Whew._ Okay, that conversation was done finally, thank God!

I reflected that it was probably the longest one we had in a long time.

I had to sit down.

I circled around the bar and sat at the short side of the 'L.'

Ted looked over at me. "Serving yourself tonight?" he asked and smirked.

That was Ted's version of a 'funny.'

I rolled my eyes. "Maybe," I said.

"Uh," he said, his eyes returning to the TV.

...

Actually tonight was a busy night, unfortunately. Regulars and non- kept coming in and staying and ordering, and I was kept busy, and was, at the same time, nearly dead on my feet.

As the evening drew to a close, I was almost screaming inside myself: I was so tired I was in agony. When it was closing time, I nearly propelled Ted, 'Old Faithful,' out the door, and it took everything I had in me to see him off instead of just turning and slamming the door shut.

But I'm a Filipino, and you wait at the door to make sure a person gets on their way safely. It'd be rude to do otherwise. And Filipinos would rather die than be rude.

If you were rude, it shamed your parents, and if you shamed your parents ...

Well, you just never did that. You couldn't.

Ted left, looking a little hurt that I was so eager to close the bar exactly on the hour.

I actually did crawl up the stairs, leaving everything at the bar as it was. I'd take care of the mess tomorrow, I promised myself.

I hit the bed hard, and was out like a light.

As I was falling asleep, I cursed myself. I didn't get in touch with Lauren. I didn't get to tell her to take her God-damn money back.

I didn't get to tell her good bye.

* * *

**A/N: **Actually this wasn't the chapter I was supposed to write. But then this moment came and hit me so hard that it was like the fainting spell that hit Sophie.

She tried to contact Lauren and tell her off, ... and she couldn't.

The military ... well, sometimes bureaucracy is more difficult to navigate than you think it would be, and what happens when you can't tell off the girl you're pissed at?

Ooh! Nothing like a little unfulfilled pissed-off-telling-off tension to keep the home fires stoked, huh?

Actually, it's called 'UST,' and it's not about being 'pissed-off' or about 'telling-off.' It's about ... something else entirely.

You can look it up.

p.s. Okay, this has nothing to do with this story, but just so you know: it is so frikken cold outside with this wind-chill bringing it down to double-digits _negative_, that the walk home from the bus stop tonight, I thought my tits were about to freeze off, and I think every guy on the bus thought I was really ... _interested_ in him. If you know what I mean. I wasn't, okay?

p.p.s. _AND_ I just realized a nagging something: this story is _a lot_ like the story _A Proper Send Off _on literotica-dot-com, and I only realized it after I finished this chapter and then titled it. The thing is: girl, bar, soldier, deployment, both stories have these same elements, but, please bear with me here, they _aren't_ the same story, they aren't the same characters (at all), their confidence is different and their pasts and motivations are (very) different. But credit where credit is due: _A Proper Send Off_ is one of the best stories on literotica-dot-com, and you should go and read it. I'm sending the author, SweetestThing, a note/apology/explanation for my story, and I hope she understands. Her story is awesome. And different than mine. And awesome. Go read it.


	3. Cookies

**Chapter summary: **What do you send to a girl who has everything, like: the hot sun, a big gun, desert sand, and wolf spiders? And where do you send it to? Ooh! I know! Cookies! Everybody loves cookies! And pics. Of me. Making cookies. Just, you know, because. That's all. Um, quit looking at me like that!

* * *

The next few days were the most heart-wrenching God-awful days in my life that I ever experienced. And you know why? Because _nothing happened!_

I ... I, like, had to contact her. Contact who? you ask. _Lauren,_ if you've been under a rock the last week or so. You know: the girl who got drunk and knifed me.

I didn't even get to hear her pickup lines.

Army girl? Army _grrl?_ I'm almost afraid to imagine them: "Hey, dragon lady, wanna sucky-fucky? I got a fiver with your name on it, babes!"

I know, right? _Ugh!_

So why couldn't I get her out of my God-damn head?

Like there was anything else going on in this Island paradise to distract me.

And I _so_ could have gone the distraction route, if the bar didn't practically run itself. People have jobs. They get paid. They get fired, and what do they do? They get a new job, because the last one worked _so well_ for them.

And people go to college, why? To get a job they hate, working with people they hate, and if you're a woman, it's like twenty times worse!

At least at the bar, you pretty much know what you're dealing with. The pick-up lines I've heard, the looks I've gotten.

Being a pretty girl actually hurts, sometimes. People ... men ... treat you more like an object and forget they're ogling a living, breathing person who has thoughts in her head, you know?

But try reminding these guys in the military of that sometimes.

_'Hello! I'm a person with thoughts and feelings here!'_

Their response? _'Uh, yeah. So ya wanna fuck now, or after you close up?'_

Neanderthals! I'm like, okay, God gave men brains for what reason? The only working head these guys have is the one between their legs, and, after the drinks they consumed little johnny's not working tonight, either, so you have to wonder why they're hitting on me, with a wedding ring as plain as day on their finger. Or no wedding ring, but ... _seriously!_ ... did you just graduate high school and decided the first thing to do on liberty, besides covering over your voice breaking, was to get yourself laid with the pretty bar keep?

I mean, are you seriously planning to lose your virginity tonight with me, because it's so not happening, Johnny Angel.

But thank you for the cheap compliments to my body, it's not like I haven't heard them three or four times ... today. 'A' for effort, though. Keep trying, you try-hards.

_God! I swear!_

It wouldn't be half so bad if they didn't egg each on. Like, do they think I'm deaf or something?

Maybe that would help everybody, but no, I'm not deaf, and the side bets on you getting lucky with me tonight are just so flattering.

That's sarcasm, by the way. Have you ever heard that word, Johnny-boy? You did go to high school, right? So you know what sarcasm means, right?

Joy.

But at least these kids are upfront about it, but you go to work, and it's all innuendo and implication. "Oh, Sally sucked my dick, so for you to keep your job, you have to take it up the ass."

Notice I didn't say 'promotion.' No, these days you have to bend over to keep your job, and promotions, these days are new title, new responsibilities, and more work, but more money? Sorry, but you haven't matured enough in your position to justify a slap to the face, known as a 2.5% raise.

My bar? I didn't have to put up with that shit, brown-nosing the boss to keep my job, I dealt with boys who thought they were men because the walked around in greens or blues and hung out with each other, and I dealt with the occasional drunk that I had to cut off, but ... but those were real problems with people being real. Being real jerks, but at least they were being real, and they were happy or sad, blowing off steam, so, really, I was helping them deal with the shit in their lives, so they could keep doing that, knowing they could come here, get a drink or few, so they could go back to do it again.

And for that I made a _ton_ of money. A bar? You buy beer and liquor at how much and sell it at two, three, four, five dollars a glass ... and shots of rare whiskey, twenty dollars a glass? And rent? I owned the bar, outright (thanks, Dad), but even if I didn't, I'd still be making lots. AND I get tips.

Why do people work at jobs, struggling to get by, when they could open up a bar, or ... strip club _(ton_ of money in those. A _ton.)_ (Not my thing. I mean, I'd die of embarrassment, but ... yeah), or ... something, anything.

But no. They go to school to learn that they have to get a job, and that's exactly what they do, going into the military so they get technical training, so they can get a job, or going right into the workforce to be a fuck-me-up-the-ass-boss-man secretary (Oh, excuse me: _'administrative assistant')_ or a oh-I'm-a-big-wig vice president of a bank branch, pulling down all of twenty-five thousand dollars a year.

And that's what these kids join the armed forces for, to go to Afghanistan or wherever to get blown to bits so we can stay home, nice and cozy, and do the 9-to-5 thing, go to 'happy' hour afterwards, and they're happy, actually, but why? Because they've left work. But then they go right home, sleep it off and go right back to work the next day.

I am so, so _blessed_ my dad opened this bar, and I was a little girl, at his knee, watching him and learning how just a little bit of ... you know: American spirit! Independence and know-how and self-reliance just beat the whole job thing over the head with a big, ugly stick.

Sure, I worked hard, every day, and I couldn't 'call in sick,' because I was actually needed, whereas at your job, you call in sick? They don't care! That's why they can fire you and call in somebody who looks just like you and pay them five-thousand dollars less. You're replaceable because your job is pointless, really.

The movie _Office Space_ had it right, if all you do is shuffle around reports, then ... well, somebody else can do that, too.

But if I didn't have my bar ... well, they tried that at Prohibition. Didn't work.

So, I'm needed.

But it's not exactly rocket science what I do. Supply, demand, service.

I had been living my life on autopilot before the blonde psychopath waltzed into my bar, and I knew that, but now ...

I still knew it, but now the dullness and listlessness had something gnawing away at me, at the edge of my consciousness.

_Lauren Mallory._

And I had time on my hands.

So, the laptop called to me.

And I wanted to call her. So I googled it. I looked up 'how to skype with my husband in Afghanistan.'

Yeah, you read that right. 'Husband.' It's not like ...

Okay, it's not like _anything, okay? _It's not like I have a _thing_ for her, or anything, so just keep your God-damn superior judgments to yourself! I wrote 'husband' in the google search because, you know, that's what I guess people did. The husband went off to Afghanistan and the wife wanted to talk with him through skype. I was sure there'd be tons of hits on that.

The problem was, there was.

But they all presupposed one thing. They presupposed you had her skype account information.

I didn't even know if Lauren had a skype account. So how could I call her own skype if I didn't know her skype information? What was I going to do? Call her for it?

My problem was I was ... too old to know about skype and ... I don't know, snapchat and everything. I was just born at the wrong age, just before all this technology took the world by storm, but I was too young _not_ to know about it all, and if I asked anybody, 'well, how does skype work?' I'd get a look like: _what? are you a retard? It's skype!_

And I looked at everybody, and yes, I had email and was on facebook, but somehow I felt everyone, even moms with kids and senior citizens, and don't even get me thinking about teenagers who got to live their teenage years as teenagers, not helping behind the bar like me ... or college kids who slept (around) at the dorm, and who didn't go home every night to mom and dad, because they didn't want the loose morals of college affecting me.

News flash: it did.

But, although I'm no virgin, I still felt like an ... outsider, just watching everybody else live their lives, and not getting to experience any of it for myself.

And I was paying for that now. Because of just asking Lauren for her phone number or email, or getting her skype account before she left (does she have one?), I was stymied by Filipina _mores._ A girl doesn't ask for a phone number. A girl doesn't take one.

And here I was. A girl. A grown woman-girl, utterly helpless now because I didn't have the guts or I didn't act quickly when I should have.

I didn't even know I had to.

That's what I felt like. That's what I looked like: fucking clueless, and it was my own damn fault. And a quick internet search didn't fix my problem for me, like I wanted it to, and I didn't know who to turn to for help.

I mean, like: Ted? _Come on._

Or my friends?

Confession-time.

I don't ... have friends. I didn't have friends in high school. I didn't have friends in college. I didn't want to be labeled 'Asian-Pacific Islander' because I'm American, God damn it! So I didn't hang out with that crowd nor join the club. And I'm not haole: I can't pass for it, and Asians who hang out with white people?

_Wannabes!_

Or worse.

And helping at the bar took my whole life. The bar was my social life, just as it was my dad's, so ...

So, yeah. I didn't have any friends. I _don't_ have any friends.

So I don't have anybody to ask for help.

So, what the fuck can I do now, God damn it!

"Sophie, what the fuck can you do!" I whispered desperately.

Then it hit me.

Lauren left her address at the hospital.

Oh, my God! I could, honest-to-God, send her a real mail. You know: a snail-mail, not an email!

Except for the fact that I didn't copy down her information at the hospital.

I was on the phone to Wahiawa hospital in seconds flat.

"Aloha, Wahiawa hospital administration," said a kind, loving voice on the other side of the phone.

You see the difference? Mainlanders are professionals. Hawaiians are ... love, and it felt just so comforting hearing the hospital staffer's voice on the other side of the phone, because I knew she cared.

"Aloha," I said, relieved, "hi, I was at the hospital a couple of days ago to get some stitches from a nasty cut I got? ... and I just wanted to see the doctor who saw me, just to be sure everything was okay? It was Doctor Lam," I added helpfully.

"Yaah," the girl drawled. "You could see your primary-care physician about that? The doctors on our staff don't normally do follow-up appointments."

Her voice lilted as she stated the rules.

But rules are for haoles. Hawaii is aloha ... for Hawaiians, that is.

My voice lilted and became younger, more ... child-like and innocent.

"Yaah," I said, "... but I don't have a primary-care physician, and I was hoping please, please, please could I see Dr. Lam, because she was so kind when she helped me plenty, and I just want to make sure I'm not getting the wound infected or something like that, yaah, and please?"

"Well ..." the woman on the other side considered.

And I _so_ had her.

But I refused to gloat as I gave her my personal details and got the appointment.

See, that's how you get things done ... in Hawaii, anyway, ... not with an assertion of rights or demands, but with the lilt.

The lilt and a kind word was a Hawaiian's superpower.

"Mahalo!" I said as the phone conversation concluded. "Mahalo plenty and thank you so much for helping me!" and she could hear the smile in my voice.

"Yaah, well, don't be late, huh, love?" she scolded gently. "Respect Dr. Lam's time, yaah. Aloha."

And she rung off.

But I could hear the smile in her voice, too.

You're supposed to obey the rules, and you're a naughty girl if you don't, so she got to scold me, even as she helped me.

I sighed as I cradled the phone. The appointment was for tomorrow. What would I do with myself until then?

...

So, I went to Starbucks.

"Yaah," I said to the barista, "so, I have a friend in military in Afghanistan, and I was wondering if Starbucks has a program that ships coffee to soldiers over there?"

I had done my homework. There had been this big stink that Starbucks wasn't supporting the military overseas, and they came out with this statement that, yes, they were, and how many tons of coffee they sent to Afghanistan in "Operation Caffeination," but it didn't say how I could get coffee sent over there, to a particular soldier, ... so she would know it would be from me.

"Oh," she said, "I don't know about that. But somebody did come in a while back and ordered a lot of coffee to be sent there, and we gave him a little discount, so you could do that."

I paused, confused, looking at her stoney face.

This was Starbucks program? I buy the coffee and they'll give me a slight discount if I buy a lot of it? And, what? I'd have to figure out how to package in and mail it off myself?

Starbucks. It was just so ... _arrgh! unhelpful!_

"Uh, mahalo," I said, taken back. "I'll ... I'll think about it more, 'kay. Mahalo."

She shrugged a _whatever_ carelessly. She had other customers to serve, and didn't have time for the little Filipina asking her questions.

I left Starbucks hurt and deflated.

I thought ...

I thought we cared about our soldiers more than that. What, was Afghanistan old news now?

I went home and looked about myself. I wanted to send a care package of coffee to Lauren but Starbucks was too big and corporate to care about little me and what I wanted.

Maybe another coffee house would ... care more?

Or maybe I would just have to make my own care package?

What would Lauren want?

I was ashamed to say I had no idea.

But ... chocolate chip cookies, maybe? I mean, who _wouldn't _want that coming in a care package. And they wouldn't be fresh from the oven, but ... homemade chocolate chip cookies?

That was the ticket.

I got busy. I prepared my own special batch, nice and tall and almost ... _fluffy_ with the extra butter I mixed in, and I took a couple of selfies as I stirred the ingredients in my big mixing bowl and then placed the rack of cookies into the oven.

And, yes, in case you were wondering, we do have ovens in Hawaii, okay? We don't sit around all day eating and drinking just raw coconuts. I mean: this is America, too, in case you didn't get that update.

The cookies came out and the whole house smelled just _yummy!_ And I was tempted, after the cookies cooled a bit, to have one for myself.

Okay, more than tempted.

But I had to make sure they were all right for Lauren, didn't I?

I put, like, three dozen cookies in plastic bags, and put those bags in a plain, brown shipping box. No beer cases, thanks! I didn't want the law breathing down my neck for shipping alcohol internationally, and wasn't Afghanistan Muslim? There's probably laws against sending alcohol there anyway.

Oh, poor Lauren! Months without a drink? How would she survive?

I smirked at my little evil pleasure at her plight.

Well, serves her right for all the trouble she caused me!

Payback, Lauren. It's a bitch, isn't it?

Okay! I then printed out my selfies and put them in the bottom of the box.

Oh, one of them I was sticking my tongue out in embarrassment. I do that sometimes.

I wondered if I should not include that one, but it did make me look kind of cute.

I left it in.

On top of the cookies I put a couple of bags of ground Kona-blend coffee, one plain, the other coconut roast, and then, of course, this was from Hawaii, so I also included a box of chocolate macadamia nuts.

Hm. Was I overdoing the chocolate?

Nah. It looked like she know how to take care of her girlish figure. She'd probably manage this with her iron will and determination, just like she managed everything else.

I smirked again, thinking of her steel will losing out during a particularly bad day during the month when she _just had to have chocolate NOW!_ and there'd my box be, under her bunk, and ...

Heh-heh-heh! I snickered as I imaged her will crumble in the face of homemade chocolate chip cookies. _Take that, Lauren, Miss Bossy!_

I _liked_ helping out with this care package.

Perhaps a bit too much, but hey, I'm Filipino. I take care of you by giving you food. Deal with it.

I wrote a little note saying that I hoped this care package helped and signed it: _Sophie._

I looked at the note.

_P.S. _I added quickly. _I wanted to skype you, but I don't know how to do that. How does skype work over there? Please let me know._

And I left my email address, blushing at my boldness as I wrote it out.

I put the note in the care package and sealed it.

Now to get her address.

...

Dr. Lam was patient and meticulous, ... and kind, ... as she examined my cut and the stitches.

"You're doing just fine, dear," she said. "Just, when you shower, try to avoid getting the area wet, and if you do just pat it dry afterward."

"Oh, okay," I said. "Thank you, Doctor, for seeing me again."

"No problem," she said, and removed her latex gloves.

I got up to go.

"That is a nasty wound," she said.

"Um, yeah," I said. I barely noticed it now, as I had gotten used the tightness of it, and was just careful turning my head, but otherwise I was fine if I were careful.

Dr. Lam looked at me critically. "How did you get it?"

"Uh," I said.

I wasn't prepared to answer that question.

"It looks like it came from a knife," she said carefully.

"I ..." I couldn't breathe suddenly.

Dr. Lam regarded me, and I found myself unable to escape her knowing eyes.

"You don't look like someone who would get into a knife-fight," she pursued, "so, I have to ask you, are you being abused?"

"Oh," I said. "Uh, no! No, I'm not!"

"You sure?" she demanded. "You can tell me, and you'll be safe. I don't see a ring on your finger, so is it your parents, sweetie?"

"No," I said, on a little safer ground, but nowhere safe in this institution with a doctor who cared about my safety ...

... And what she would do to ensure it.

"No," I said, "my parents have been dead for years, ma'am. I'm not being abused by them. I never was."

"Do you cohabit with someone, a boyfriend or partner?" Dr. Lam asked.

"N-no," I said. "No, Doctor, I just ... I just ..."

Now I just wanted to get the hell out of here!

"I just live by myself," I got out.

"Then how did you get that?" Dr. Lam pressed. "How did you get hurt, honey?"

"I ..." I started, but then I almost broke down. "Please, may I go now, Doctor, please?"

Dr. Lam regarded me critically, and I could see the wheels turning in her head.

She sighed.

"Okay," she said, finally, "but please take this ..."

She wrote down a number on a prescription slip which she carefully voided.

"This is a number to a crisis hotline," she explained. "You can call it at anytime if you feel you may get hurt again or if you don't feel safe, okay, sweetie?"

"Yes," I said breathlessly, grabbing the slip from her. "Mahalo, doctor. Thank you for seeing me again."

I couldn't get away from her fast enough.

And as quickly as I walked, I couldn't outrun her eyes following me as I left.

...

I verified the billing with outpatient care. Lauren would get socked, again, with another bill.

Or did the Military pick that up? I didn't know. But ... she would know that I had to follow up, right?

I didn't know the answer to that question, either.

But this time, I did get the a copy of the invoice.

And, yes, Lauren's information, including her address, was on it.

I left the hospital cringing, feeling like I was some criminal for getting hurt.

...

Next up, I went home, got the care package and went to the post office. I wrote out her address carefully using a Sharpie pen, and added at the bottom "AFGHANISTAN," so they would know where to send it, and it would reach Lauren more quickly, or so I hoped.

The postal worker looked at my package and scowled.

"No, love," she said frowning at me, and she blacked out the word 'Afghanistan.'

"Huh?" I asked, hurt.

"You write that, and it gets taken up by the U.S. Post Office and sent overseas that way, and goes through customs and needs international postage at international rates."

I thought that's what was supposed to happen. I looked at the postal worker helplessly.

"See, it'll take forever to get there that way." she explained, "but this is an A.P.O, that's a U.S. address."

"But I want it to go to Afghanistan," I put in. "That's where the soldier is now."

"Yes," she said, "that's what will happen. The Army knows this and routes it to the Army Base there, and they'll do it wiki-wiki!" She used the Hawaiian word: _quick-quick._ "But it's still considered an Army address so you just pay U.S. rates and the Army picks it up and handles it much faster than if it went through standard international mail, understand me, sweetie?"

"Oh," I said, surprised out of my anger and confusion. This clerk was actually _helping _me, I realized. She was being mean about it, but she was helping me. "Ah, okay," I said, "Mahalo. I didn't know."

"Obviously," she almost snarled as she breathed out this big postal-worker sigh, as if I were the five hundredth customer who got this wrong.

But then I thought: well, maybe I was.

She told me the rate, which was very reasonable for a box full of goodies going to Afghanistan, so I paid and gave her a grateful smile.

She thawed, slightly, and smiled back.

I left the post office feeling on top of the world! I had just sent SPC Lauren Mallory a box of cookies and stuff.

And pics. Of me! ... just making cookies, but still! _Eeek!_ What was I thinking?

I was blushing now as I was floating out of the post office, and I scurried out of there, too, suddenly shy and embarrassed.

I guess that's what I do now, get myself in trouble and scurry away.

This new, interesting life was just so unpredictable! I don't think I like it at all.

So why was I smiling so hard now?

...

I checked my email like ... three-thousand times, looking for Lauren's email. The first twenty times after I got home from the post office, and then I realized what I was doing.

So I looked up online how long a package would take to get Afghanistan. I was scared that it would be something like two to three months, right? That's how long international mail took, wasn't it?

Seven days. A package to an A.P.O. in Afghanistan (or anywhere, I guess. 'A.P.O.' meant 'Anywhere the Army wants it to be,' as far as they were concerned) took only seven days.

Seven days too long for me to wait, but that was still ... _fast._ Much quicker than two to three months. The lady at the post office was right. It was _wiki-wiki!_

I smiled to myself. And I bet none of those haoles who used wikipedia even know where the word came from, or what it meant.

After finding that out, I checked my phone so much less frequently for new emails.

Like, I managed to wait even a whole hour one time between scans for new emails.

By the end of that week I was furious and despairing! Why hadn't she responded? Yes, she hadn't gotten the package yet, so she didn't know my email.

But still. This was _all her fault! WHY WASN'T SHE EMAILING ME YET!_

Haha, funny, right?

But then, it hit me. What if she got the package, and she ... didn't email me back?

After then, I simultaneously check my phone like every second, and, at the same time, I never, ever looked at my phone again.

I wanted to kill her and I wanted to kill myself, I was so angry and depressed at the same time.

And I thought: how in the world do military spouses live through this? How do children ... exist every day knowing that Daddy, or ... Mommy was over there and could get hurt or killed at any time and why weren't they emailing back, did that mean they died?

How in the world could anybody live like that?

I knew I couldn't, and I had nothing to do with this Lauren Mallory.

Nothing at all.

And then, tending bar, I got it.

It was from her. It had a 'dot-mil' address and it was ...

It was from her.

I squealed.

Maybe I peed, a little bit.

Ted looked from the TV. "Everything okay?" He asked surprised, then smiling as he saw my face just _glowing._

"Yeah, yeah," I said quickly. "Hey, I have to excuse myself a second, 'kay?"

And I ran from the bar to the bathroom upstairs, not even waiting for his answer.

See, I had to use the bathroom upstairs, because somebody had to change her panties that may or may not have become a little, tiny bit soiled.

I relieved myself as I opened the email on my phone with trembling hands.

"Hey, dumbass," Lauren's email started out.

Great. Lauren is Lauren. My eyes scanned through the email rapidly, looking to see if she were angry with me, or if she were like some rapper who called his hoes 'yo bitches!' in an affectionate kind of way.

Not misogynistic at all, right?

Sure.

My eyes took in everything at once, so I had to read her email again, slowly, so I could understand the words she wrote.

Her tone wasn't angry, it was ... teasing? maybe?

"So I guess the cookies mean you don't want to press charges. Your loss, I guess."

Then a small: "(thanks)"

She continued. "So, you have to give me your skype id for me to call you, no duh. Tell me when to call you, too, but we're 14:30 time difference Kabul to Hawaii, so it's like night and day, so maybe after you close up, which is when? But I can't skype on duty or during the work day, so we'll have to figure something out. idk. Anyway, email me back your 411."

Then she signed off: "Hooah! Lauren."

Okay, seriously? '_Hooah'?_ What the hell was that supposed to mean?

She also post-scripted. "p.s. The guys snarfed the cookies and were like: 'send _MOAR!' _So, yeah. That."

I hoped to God she opened the box and took out ... certain pictures before the 'guys' 'snarfed' my cookies.

I went back downstairs. I don't remember walking down the steps, but I got back to the bar somehow. I think I had the stupidest grin on my face.

No, I didn't send my skype id to Lauren. I didn't reply at all.

To send her my skype id, I'd have to download skype onto my computer first, and if I opened up my laptop, I didn't know when I'd get back to the bar.

Computers are just the biggest timesinks in the world!

And, free spirit that I am (or that I like to think that I am), I do have responsibilities.

So, I was back at the bar. And I waited for the comments from somebody for me to turn down the wattage, but nobody said anything.

Huh. Disappointing.

So I just went back to tending bar and let the time pass, easily.

...

As I closed up, and shooed Ted out the door, he gave me a look, and then he grinned just so slightly.

I waited for him to say something.

"Well, 'nite," he said, smirking, and ambled off down the road.

_Hmmphf!_

But I didn't have time to reproach him for his superior _'nite, _like he was all in-the-know about anything, as if anything were up anyway!

How do parents know that? Know when something's up with you, when it _so isn't!_

I ran up to my bedroom after hastily cleaning up downstairs, and started downloading skype.

The progress bar ... _aargh! _I wanted to reach into my computer and _yank_ the damn thing forward! Why do they call it a progress bar when _it doesn't make any progress?_

I think that's when I fell asleep with my laptop on my bed, watching skype downloading, in my bra and panties.

There may or may not have been drool on my pillow the next morning when I woke up, looking sleepy-stupid at my open laptop.

I'd rather not comment on the drool-on-the-pillow that _was so not there, by the way!_

I set up my skype account and fretted over a user name, finally settling on _'alohasoph' _and wondering if that was okay, and wondering if Lauren would start calling me 'Soph' not 'Sophie,' and wondering if she did, would I like it or not like it, and wondering what that meant, either way.

I sent Lauren an email, and waited with baited breath for her to respond.

Which kept not coming.

I checked Kabul-time online, it was after midnight. I thought we were twelve hours off. No, Lauren said it was ... what? more than fourteen hours off? Did she stay up past midnight? Or did they have to go to bed at nine pm in the military?

Or did she not keep rechecking her email? like I kept rechecking mine?

_Like, not everybody is obsessive, Sophie,_ I scolded myself. _And isn't from backwater Mililani and have other things to do than check their email like every three seconds!_

_Shoot!_ I thought.

Now what to do with myself before the bar opened this evening?

Well, Lauren said, 'Send more cookies,' so I could do that, I guess.

I slumped over to the kitchenette and got out the mixing bowl, but then I just lost heart.

I didn't want to make cookies. I wanted to talk with Lauren! Now!

To tell her off! Yeah. To tell her off! That's it.

I put the bowl away, just so in a deep blue funk that it was almost a bitter black funk.

And you can't make cookies in a bitter black funk, because then the cookies become bitter, too. I saw that in the movie _Like Water for Chocolate._

I saw that, and then there was the scene with the bathtub and candles ... _lots _of candles.

Not that that has anything to do with anything.

I left. I had to get out. Maybe I'd go to Waikiki at watch the tourists turn themselves into broiled lobsters on the beach. That'd be fun, right?

I got into my beater, a rust-red Toyota Celica that was most definitely _not_ Lauren's sex-on-wheels mustang, and headed toward H2 so I could drive into Honolulu.

And ... as I was driving ...

Okay, what's this? How come I can't see?

I had to pull over.

I had something in my eyes, and my vision was all blurry, and I had to keep wiping them for some reason.

Somebody sobbed loudly, and I heard crying.

I sat in my car for a half-hour so I could pull myself together and drive again, but not to the beach.

Now I just wanted to go home.

I watched the cars pass by and I felt connected to the town and the community. I mean, nobody came up to me, but Mililani was my home town, and I knew the feel of it, in my bones. I breathed Hawaiian air and exactly at three pm every day, I felt the Hawaiian rain, and the sun was my friend and brother, and I was a part of my town, and my town was a part of me.

And I liked that, being Hawaiian, being a part of things-as-they-are, and it was okay, no matter what was happening, and no matter when it happened. We were Hawaii, and we were on Aloha-time, and things came when they did, not before, and not in a rush, but in its own time.

And I felt ... better, feeling that. This wasn't happening now, what I wanted, but it would happen later, and that was okay.

I smiled my Aloha-smile to myself, and drove past home, to Wahiawa.

Not to the hospital, again.

But to Schofield Barracks.

I couldn't drive on in. Why would I? How could I? Didn't you have to show a military id or something?

But there was a park, right across from the barracks called 'Woodwinds.' I parked my car and discovered this huge lake, right in Wahiawa, right in the middle of Oahu, with these tall, towering willow trees. They couldn't be willow trees, because they were way too tall, they were more like oak trees, but whatever they were, they were beautiful, peaceful, ancient.

_'I was here yesterday. I am here today. I will be here tomorrow,' _the trees told me, and I smiled at them in gratitude as I walked along a paved foot path by the lake. It was like a tourist spot, but not for Mainlanders, but a private park, just for Hawaiian natives, and I wondered if it were okay for me, a second generationer, to be here.

But it was okay. It was Hawaii. It was Aloha, and I felt welcomed and loved here.

I smiled, and I walked for awhile and I let the cool air from the lake be a balm to my troubled spirit, now troubled no more, but calm and serene.

And Mainlanders come to Hawaii on a one-or-two week vacation and rush to get everything in, and they get none of it. They come to Hawaii, but they get nothing of what Hawaii is, because Hawaii isn't in the rushing about, it's in the here, in the now, in the stillness of this cool breeze off the water as the Sun looked down on me peeking through shade provided by these kind, ancient willow trees.

I walked for a while in this park that went on forever, it seemed, all by myself. Everybody else was at work, I guessed, so I had the whole park to myself. I had the whole world to myself, and it was good to be alone for now, to be at peace.

I walked back to my beater-car, still smiling, and drove home.

It had been a full week, filling me up with ... stuff: the hospital, the post office, mailing packages, making cookies, getting an email, being called 'dumbass,' and not minding, too much.

I was full of things I've never really done, and on my own, and I could be proud of daring and accomplishing all these things. But I didn't have to let them weigh me down or consume me.

I could do all those things and anticipate ... something ... from the other side of the world.

But in the doing and anticipating, I could ... still be me, and be happy with me.

I got the bar ready for opening time. As everybody else was finishing their work-day, my would be starting. They had their jobs, and I had my bar, and somehow it all worked so that we had each other, in a way.

This was Hawaii, and it all just worked.

Even the haoles, always rushing about, always so out of breath ('haole'), even they, now, were a part of Hawaii, as much as we natives tolerated them sometimes, or hated and despised them at other times, and what they've done to us, how they've changes us and our ways to theirs. Even they were a part of Hawaii.

Or they weren't, as was now the case with Lauren, and that was ... okay, too.

Wasn't it?

I smiled at my bar, dark and quiet before opening, just being in this moment, connected to my bar, looking after this place: it's care-taker, given to me for this brief moment on Earth.

... and I checked my email. Just one more time. Just to be sure.

Nothing from Lauren.

That was okay, though. In it's own time. It would happen or it wouldn't, and that was okay.

I looked at me smiling in the mirror behind all the liquor on display.

_"Aloha," _I whispered as I smiled my aloha-smile, knowing it was okay.

So why was there sadness in my eyes?

* * *

**A/N:** So, unlike Sophie I have never, ever fell asleep in my undie-thingies, with my face pressed against the keyboard with eight thousand 'L's on a PM I was writing. Never. Nope, didn't happen. Ever.

And there was no pillow all soggy with drool, either. Just so you know. Just in case you were wondering.

... so, Sophie. Yeah. Lauren is 'sex on legs,' and her 'stang is 'sex on wheels.' But Sophie is this sweet, innocent girl who thinks proper thoughts, and wants Lauren to call her so she can tell her off.

Yeah. Okay, Soph, whatever you say, sweets. Aloha to you, too.

Now Sophie's gonna kill me, too. *sigh* The travails of being the authoress of sweet, smart girls who are _so totally __not_ in denial. I tell you what.

_OOH! HOW COULD I FORGET? _SweetestThing, authoress of the story "A Proper Send Off" on literotica, wrote back. She gave me her blessing for me to keep writing my story, she just asked that my character 'Jim' be renamed as it was too close to hers, so I did. 'Ted' was a WWII veteran who sang in our choir. He was a sweet, old man who was always getting us 'kids' names wrong. He died right before the New Year. He wasn't a drinker, but I see him looking after Soph here in this story. Thank you, Ted, and thank you, dear SweetestThing, for your kind words about my story and letting me continue it.


	4. Skyping

**Chapter summary:** Everything in the Army is treated the same: mean. Just ask Lauren, for she's an _expert _when it comes to that. Oh, and everything in the Army is green. You're not black or white or Asian-yellow. You're green. So are your clothes. All of them ... I mean: I think they all are. I wouldn't know.

* * *

"Yo," the email started off, and I nearly had a heart attack.

_God! Finally!_ an email from Lauren.

Was I obsessing? I don't think I was obsessing.

Was I obsessing?

I'm so pathetic. An email from Lauren now either made me or broke me.

_Yo,_ it said, and I was so glad she didn't call me the b-word. Kids in high school call each other the b-word, but I don't ... like that. Why would that term for a female dog be one of familiarity, or affection?

I'm glad Lauren didn't call me that in her email.

_Yo,_ it said, and this was the third time I was reading that word, I realized. _6:30 am, your time. Be there. _Then she wrote in parenthesis: _(skype)_ Like she had to be sure I knew what she meant.

She signed it: _L._

I groaned at the same time I squeed in delight.

I mean: _6:30 am?_ Did the military always have to do everything at the crack of dawn? What was it with them, anyway?

But I'd be talking to _Lauren!_

I had the stupidest, goofiest grin on my face for the rest of the night that I tended bar. Ted didn't even notice, the old coot. Some of the other patrons did, and smiled back, shyly, wondering if I were smiling at them, which made me smile warmly at them, even more. Some men can be so sweet, sometimes I guess, or maybe it was the rose-colored glasses I was wearing.

Some gave me funny looks, like, _what's her problem?_ Like it was illegal for a girl to be happy and smiling, for goodness sake!

I paid them no mind; I didn't care.

_Lauren_ was calling me, so why should I care about what other people thought?

There was a spring in my step the whole night, and, and ... an angstiness, I was floating in this feeling of happiness, and my whole hand itched to check my phone, over and over again throughout the night, just to be sure her email was real and was still there, or, like her, appearing for a brief instant, then, just like that, disappearing, flown off to Afghanistan, like she didn't exist at all.

My hand itched, but, and you wouldn't believe how incredibly hard this was, but I didn't check my phone, over, and over again through that night that lasted _forever, I swear!_

You see: I wasn't a teenager in high school anymore, checking for texts from her bf.

I was an adult now. I had to behave like one. I had responsibilities to my customers. When they wanted a beer, they wanted a beer, and they didn't want to get frustrated signaling and signaling the girl behind the bar checking her phone all night long.

I couldn't check out of the here and now. Teenagers can do that, and their age excuses them, but me, I'm grown up, and I had no excuse to be squeeing like a fangirl over an email.

I tended bar, I smiled, ... and I couldn't _wait_ for closing time.

Third night I closed the bar promptly, shooing Ted out the door with, okay, perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm.

"'Nite," Ted said, confusion wreathing his face ... and maybe a little bit of hurt.

"Good night, Ted," I said, glowing. Trying to keep the glow inside.

Trying.

Ted frowned. "You taking new vitamins or something?"

"Huh?" I asked, surprised at his question.

"You look ... I don't know. Good. Happy," Ted said carefully.

"Thanks, ... I think," I answered just as careful now, on my guard.

"Something up?" Ted probed.

"Huh?" I said, then deadpanned quickly, "No, no, nothing's up, just another lovely day."

Then I shrugged easily.

"Huh," Ted said, unconvinced. "Well," he said, his voice trailing off.

Then he shrugged and tottered off.

I stayed by the door, watching him amble off, and ... I saw him, for the first time.

Ted was old. Ted was really, really old now.

My parents were old when they married and then had me (an accident, I think: they got a little too excited on their honeymoon? or was it something in the water? But I was a high-risk pregnancy and an emergency delivery. Mama always called me her 'little miracle' and loved me so much, I guess because I was alive and whole, and that was such a surprise to both my parents, that they could have me), so I grew up with people asking my dad, "Is that your granddaughter?"

Papa was both proud and annoyed at the same time at questions like those.

Ted was Papa's friend. And Papa has been dead a long, long time. Common for Filipinos: high cholesterol, high sugar diets brings on diabetes, and Filipinos tend to be worked harder than most people, because they can be, and, cruelly, called 'lazy' at the same time.

So a hard life plus the effects of Filipino cooking, and Filipino men just ... die.

There are a lot of old women, widows, in the Philippines. Mama, however, decided not to hang on forever, going to church every day and praying for Papa. She decided to follow him.

She died, peacefully, in her sleep, six months after Papa died. 'Natural causes,' they told me. But I knew better. Yes, she died of natural causes, but she didn't want to die an old church lady, hanging on for decades, but why? No, she wanted to follow the man she loved, ... home.

This all happened in my senior year in college.

I don't have fond memories of college, like other people do.

So I went to school during the day, and tended bar at night.

My GPA took a huge hit my final semester in college, but I graduated, fortunately, and I knew I had a 'job' right out of school.

Not a lot of people in the world are that fortunate these days.

But, see, ... Papa and Mama died old.

And Ted just kept hanging on and on and on.

And I didn't know why. I mean, it wasn't against the law, or anything, but, what did he have to live for?

I suppose, though, the same question could be asked of me, or most anybody, actually, and I think 99% of the people asked really wouldn't have a good reason.

But I think Ted hung on ... to honor my dad, and his memory ... can you believe it?

I mean, Ted's about the only white person I know who was kind to us Filipinos, and he and Papa were friends, and I mean _friends-_friends, not just nice to each other, but true friends. If BFFs meant anything anymore to anyone, which it doesn't because it's been watered down to the weak-assed shit it means today, so it's more like fair-weather friends, but if it _did_ mean anything, then Papa and Ted were the epitome of BFFs: they loved each other more than life itself, and probably jumped in front of plenty of bullets for each other, I don't know, but I could totally see it, because I think they saved each other's lives in combat or something. They never told me anything, and they never reminisced on the 'good old days.' They were just friends, and that's how it was, and that's all I ever knew.

Seeing Ted totter off ... I wondered if he were carrying my dad's memory with him, like it was a weight than bore down on him. I saw an old, old man that nobody talked to or bothered, he was just there at the bar, but he was filled with memories, and nobody had time for him. Nobody cared.

When he died, would anybody feel the loss, like I felt the loss of my parents?

Ted disappeared down the street under the odd electric glow of the rare street lamp and the Hawaiian night sky.

...

I couldn't sleep.

I kept tossing and turning, and I was filled with a nervous energy, like I had drunk a whole pot of black coffee.

But I hadn't drunk any coffee at all; I just couldn't sleep!

I had to sleep. I'd be waking up _way_ too early tomorrow to get a call on skype. Did skype have to be up to get the call? I fretted over that, got out of bed, opened my laptop, and called up skype.

Would it ... ring? Like a phone?

I went back to bed, but didn't lie down.

"Arrgh!" I screamed, threw something on, got into my car, and sped down H2.

A drive to clear my head would help. I rolled down my window and drove, carefully, down the highway.

Cops hate haoles? Hells, yeah. But they are pure-D mean to natives, too. You break the law, the cops in Hawaii take it personally.

Instead of turning onto H1 and heading down to Waikiki for a past-midnight walk on the beach (and get hit on by tourists wanting to get lucky? Eww!) I kept driving South toward a little outcropping called Sand Island.

As I headed out that way, I passed a junk yard.

Past midnight I saw two Hawaiians limned in light outside their shack, staring intensely at their chess pieces over a board.

I got to Sand Island, only to find that it was a Coast Guard base.

Okay, seriously?

Hawaii isn't Hawaiian anymore. Some say the Japanese have bought all the land, but, to me, what isn't the International Airport, and the golf course right outside it (Hawaiians play golf? When did that happen?), is owned by the U.S. Military: Pearl Harbor, Tripler Army Hospital, Schofield Barracks. The military just took all the prime real estate and declared: 'This is ours.'

Is Hawaii the only country, that's not a country anymore, where the indiginous population has been wiped out and marginalized? Do you know who can't afford to live in Hawaii now?

Hawaiians.

This is what our Islands have been reduced to: a military base turned into vacation spot for the Americans, first, but now for the Japanese and the Australians.

And you wonder why the Natives hate the haoles ... 'sometimes.'

With regret I turned my car around and head back North toward Mililani. The drive to clear my head didn't do that so much as make me sad.

I went to bed, depressed, and I slept.

...

I was woken by a weird sound.

What the hell was that?

I groggily looked around. I didn't ever set the alarm; okay, hardly ever since college, so it wasn't that. It wasn't coming from the phone.

My brain was in a haze and floating in a sea of cotton.

No, I hadn't been drinking, okay? I just ... don't wake up well. Ever.

I looked toward the sound.

It was my laptop.

That woke me up. _Fast._

_"Ahhh!" _ I screamed, falling out of bed — _clunk!_ — then rushing toward the laptop.

Fortunately, skype is built for dummies like me, there was a big popup screen that basically said, "Hey, idiot, take the damn call."

I pressed the "answer with video" button, then instantly regretted it. I had just stumbled out of bed, and I probably looked just like that, except worse, with bed-head, creases of the sheets lining my face and a little white cotton 'fuck-me' tee on that showed exactly what else I _wasn't_ wearing.

And, no, you pervs, it wasn't 'nothing,' I had on panties, too, okay? Not that I was aiming my cam at my lower half for Lauren to see, but ...

Oh, my God, I'll stop now.

On my screen nothing happened. No video came up, nothing.

"Um, hello?" I said tentatively.

"Hey."

_It was Lauren's voice. _I squeed a little, to myself, fangirlishly, and then I scolded myself. But then, why scold myself? I was just squeeing because I made skype work, is all.

Right?

"Yay," I shouted, "it worked!" I said.

Just to be sure everyone knew I was excited about skype.

And even though I (okay: _mentally)_ squeed, I didn't pee. But I realized that I would have to take care of that business, and soon.

And _kwaaaahfeeeee!_ _Gawd! I need kwaauhfee naow!_

I hastily straightened my hair with a three-fingers comb, and looked around nervously, wasn't there supposed to be video? I didn't see Lauren on the screen. Could she see me?

The very next second a heavily pixelated image came up that was basically a cloud of grey dots, but then they resolved and resolved and resolved to the mean, green fighting machine that Lauren was in the Army, she had a big gun slung over her front, and she looked every inch like a cold-blooded killer that first walked into my bar, her face was ice-white, her sea green eyes penetrating, and her cornsilk blond hair making her look like an angel, yes, but totally an angel of death, you know, just like those Norse Valkyries riding in from heaven to kick ass and bring slain warriors to heaven or wherever the vikings went.

If Lauren were a Valkyrie ...

I guess my image was resolving on her screen because her eyes widened slightly, taking me in, then her face lit up, slightly, with a sardonic smirk.

For what she saw is what I saw in a little corner box of my skype window. She was a Valkyrie, but, ugh! I looked like a hag! _Gah!_

_"Reveille!"_ she barked.

"Ugh? Wha?" I grumbled, blinking rapidly, trying to get the _muta_ out of my eyes.

Lauren snickered and then translated for my unactivated brain in mocking, sing-song tones, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes little Sophie happy, healthy and wise."

I glared at her, stupid and angry with sleep. "Isn't it: 'early to bed, early to rise, make me pissy, hissy and ... uh, ... um," then I glowered and almost shrieked, _"and it's too God-damn early in the morning for me to think of a word for 'pissed off' that rhymes with 'wise'!"_

The image on skype was resolving better, I could see Lauren almost pull back a little, shocked at my outburst.

Then her sarcastic expression reasserted itself, neatly covering over her momentary surprise. "Well, well, well," she said, amused, "it looks like someone just lit a firecracker under our sleeping zombie, huh?"

But I saw it in her: she _had_ to be cool, at all costs. She couldn't let anything, including my outburst, reveal anything under her cool _façade._

I filed that one away for now.

"Yes, they did," I said, more calmly, but only slightly mollified. "... and isn't it 'sleeping _beauty'? _Not 'zombie,' I thought. What you calling me a decomposing, brain-munching ... uh ... _ugly-, ..._ um, thingie? ... monster?"

My brain was just not working right now. I cursed my brain for not working.

_Curse you, stupid brain, for not working!_

I felt slightly better for cursing my _Judas-_brain.

'Judas' in Filipino is pronounce the Latin way: _Who-daas. _And it's a very strong curse word. You see signs on the taxis: "Who does not pay." You're a Judas if you don't pay your fare.

Our taxis drivers (Jeepni, actually) are hard-working, rail-thin, angry men _—_ very, very _macho —_ and they need to support their three mistresses, you see, so you'd _better_ pay. You don't want to be cursed with being called a Judas. Trust me on that one.

Lauren chuckled. "It all depends," she said easily, not at all embarrassed at me calling her out on calling me zombie, which miffed me further, "the zombies in _Warm Bodies _were pretty hot."

"Really?" I said, now blushing that she was, by implication, calling me hot, "I haven't seen that movie."

"Yeah," she looked up and away dreamily, "That Nicholas Hoult is ... _yum!_ That is," she amended, "if you go for pretty boys."

"Huh," I said, wondering if she were thinking I were pretty, too, ... or boyish. No, I definitely wasn't boyish.

Okay, why has my _Judas-_brain gone into overdrive into analyzing everything Lauren says? It's not like I want her to like or to notice me or anything.

"Oh, okay, so ... I guess I'm feeling less pissy," I said, almost apologetic for my earlier outburst ... but I _still_ think it's illegal for people to get up this early. "But, about that ..." I said hesitantly. "Uh, may I go to the bathroom?"

Lauren's face twisted up in confusion. "Okay, did you just ask me if it's okay for you to go to your own bathroom?"

"Yeah ...?" I said, becoming embarrassed.

"Uh," Lauren said nonplussed, "sure, I guess."

"Thanks," I said, getting up, "I'll just be a sec'" I said, making to go.

"Soph," Lauren called.

"Soph_ie,"_ I corrected sharply.

"Yeah, whatever," she said dismissively, which irked me. "Just, you're a grown woman, right? I mean, right?"

"Yeah?" I said, not knowing why she was asking.

"And you're home, and this isn't like elementary school, so, you know, you don't need to raise your hand and ask permission to use the bathroom, you know, right?" Lauren said cautiously.

I was blushing bright red. "It's _impolite_ to impose on your time!" I bit off, out of breath.

"... to go to the bathroom?" Lauren asked. Her face showed that she just didn't get it.

"Yes!" I said, hotly, angry now that I had to explain this obvious truth.

"But if a girl's got to go ...?" Lauren said slowly, still confused.

She shrugged. "Oh, run along, little girl!" she waved me away, sounding both amused and annoyed.

_"Thank_ you!" I snarled sarcastically, now really angry at her, and ran off.

I heard from my laptop Lauren's voice, following me. "Cute panties," she observed.

I squealed a little _'Eeek!'_ as I ran to the bathroom, slamming the door closed behind me.

...

I sneaked into my bedroom after and slipped on a pair of jeans.

I had time to reflect.

I guess it was a White person's thing. They, their American 'culture' which wasn't a culture at all, but was this 'everybody's equal so they should be all treated the same,' ...

Well, because they had that, they had no way of understanding something so fundamental as respect, and its essential component: shame. A guest had to have your respect and attention, and going to the bathroom was selfish because it focused your attention away from them, so you were ashamed to ask permission to go to the bathroom.

Lauren felt none of the shame I felt asking the essential question, because, as a White American, she had no shame. Everybody was the 'same' or 'equal,' even though they were not, so didn't need to be treated with respect. No, for her, she was just as good as anybody else, so _they_ had to prove themselves to _her, _not the other way around.

The 'other way around' being me, and how I treated my elders, including my parents, and those in positions of authority over me, with absolute respect.

Lauren didn't look like a kind of person who did that. She looked like the typical young American person, so confident and full of themselves that they had no time for the wisdom that age had to impart on them.

'Wisdom'? What's that, and out of my way, you stupid, old person.

Lauren thought I was stupid.

I sat back down in front of the laptop, Lauren was still there, waiting patiently, a smirk on her face. "Was it good for you?" she asked, teasingly.

"Yeah," I said, and looked away, hurt.

"Hey," she said quickly, trying to get my attention. "I just thought it was funny, is all. I didn't mean anything by it."

She didn't mean anything by it, except to be mean to me, is all.

I was depressed.

We were quiet, me sad, and I saw, Lauren was sad, too. Her light teasing had gone flat, and she knew it.

"I mean," she said, trying, "I just don't understand. Why do you have to ask to use your own bathroom?"

I shrugged, forlorn. "It's cultural, I guess."

"... to ask to go to the bathroom?" she said.

I sighed. "Yeah," I said, grimacing, "you were right: you don't understand."

Lauren was quiet. "And now you're pissed."

"No," I said angrily, looking away. You're not supposed to point out someone else is angry, you're just supposed to smooth over things gently. It's called _pakikisama._ Another thing American have no idea about. Americans are very individualistic and responsibility-oriented, which is fine, I guess, but they have no concept of ... _enharmonious_ feelings. For the Filipino, the group is everything.

Americans just don't ... _get_ that.

I looked back to Lauren. She had a pensive look on her face.

"Soph," she said quietly.

"Soph_ie,"_ I corrected, but without force.

"So why the 'alohasoph' name?" she asked.

I shrugged. "It was available," I said. And I grimaced, and added silently, _and I was feeling whimsical._ I wasn't feeling whimsical now. "I mean, you signed your name 'L' on your email, so do you want me to go around calling you 'L' like that supermodel?"

She smiled ironically, ignoring the barb. "I actually paid a lot of money for a modeling shoot," she said.

"Oh," I said, "you were a model?" I said, surprised, then amended quickly, "Not that that's a surprise, I mean ..."

Suddenly, I was embarrassed, looking away, and waved to the supermodel on the other side of the screen to finish my explanation.

Lauren was quiet. "No," she said finally, "I wasn't a model. The shoot was a scam. I never made the cover of _Vogue, _or anything."

She was quiet again. I looked back at her, she was looking down.

I made to say something, but she shrugged.

"You could've been," I whispered.

She looked back at me and smiled sadly. "Yeah. Thanks," she said listlessly.

I didn't know what to say.

"Soph," she said.

I didn't correct her this time. My eyes did narrow at her. Just a little bit.

She smirked, but then was serious again. "Why did you want to skype?"

I shrugged defensively. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Everything else ... just kind of faded in importance: me telling her off, me telling her to take her damn money back, me ... anything.

Nothing mattered anymore. I just wanted to make sure she was okay, and that other stuff was just stupid now.

She shrugged, but it looked like my answer disappointed her. "I'm okay," she said. "You happy?"

I didn't answer; I looked away.

"Soph," she said.

I looked back at her.

"This is the ... last time we can do this ... for a while," she said apologetically.

She didn't want to talk to me anymore? I didn't understand.

"I don't understand," I said helplessly, after trying to work out what she meant, and failing.

"Our unit's going on patrol, we've been assigned to the Zabul province, so ..."

She shrugged.

I blinked. "Oh... you're in Kabul now, right? Is ... Zabul close?"

She chuckled, then shook her head. "No, it's across the country, about five hundred kilometers over some pretty tricky terrain."

"Oh," she said _tricky_ terrain. I had a feeling that wasn't the only thing that was 'tricky.' "Is it ... is it a war zone, or anything?"

Lauren frowned. "We're not at war, Soph; we're peacekeepers."

Her gentle scolding really stung. I hated being lectured to, as if I were a child who didn't know anything.

"Then why do you have that big gun if you're a 'peacekeeper'?" I demand.

"'Big gun'?" Lauren asked, surprised, almost stunned.

"Yeah," I said, and waved at the big thing strapped over her chest. "That big gun you're wearing."

Lauren laughed at me, and I blushed in anger. But she just kept laughing. "Sophie," she said sweetly, _"this_ is my rifle," she hoisted the gun, okay: _rifle_ she was wearing, _"this_ is my gun," she put her hand over her crotch and made rubbing motions.

"This is for shootin'" she indicated her rifle again.

Then, about there were a bunch of guys in the room with her, just hanging out in the background, ignoring us, but when Lauren was saying all this, chanting it, almost, they joined in with her in chorus, their words raucous and loud, almost shaking the walls, _"and this is for fun!"_

They all had a good laugh at my expense, at silly me and my silly way of speaking.

I suddenly hated Army. All of them.

"Har, har!" I said, trying to take their teasing like a good sport.

But my good-sport face was ... it was a sorry, thin, little veneer over the hurt I had just been delivered. I wanted to go back to bed and crawl under the covers and just hide there for a week, and just make this call go away. I had so looked forward to it, and it was so ... _not_ anything I wanted it to be. It was embarrassing and uncomfortable and just mean, and I hated it now.

The guys had dispersed ... it looked like a rec room, but cheap, with beign walls, almost no decor and just a bunch of Army people in uniform, hanging out because they had nowhere else to go.

They were probably itching to go out on their patrol, just so they wouldn't stay around, doing nothing except getting into fights with each other and being mean to me.

"When are you going to be leaving?" I asked.

"Tomorrow morning, zero-seven-hundred hours, is muster, then," she shrugged, "we're off."

"Will you call before you go?" I said sadly.

"Like I'm sure they'll delay the maneuver so I can call you to tell you I'm as okay tomorrow morning as I am tonight?" she said sarcastically.

"Oh," I said.

I was starting to feel numbed. It's like I could only take so much hurt from her, and then I just couldn't be affected any more.

That hurt, losing feeling and becoming numb to it. I never saw myself as checking out, and that's what I felt myself to be doing. I felt myself slipping away.

"How long will you be gone?" I said.

"Dunno," Lauren said. "Prolly take under a week to get there, and we'll stay until the next patrol comes to relieve us. If it's a short one we'll be there a month, so a month-and-a-half, then, but if it's not a short tour ..."

She shrugged.

"Oh," I said. "You ... do you have internet, or anything?"

"Yeah," Lauren said scathingly, "like they have wifi hotspots set up all over the wilderness there? Zabul's like ... all mountains, Soph, okay? It doesn't have McDonalds and Starbucks with free wifi all over the place, you know?"

Okay, I was almost crying now. I slammed my fist down. "Okay, Jesus, Lauren. I didn't know, okay?"

"So I told you," she said reasonably.

"Yeah," I said, "but you didn't have to be mean about it, Lauren! God! Okay? I was tryin' ta ..."

I broke off and looked away quickly.

Something got in my eyes and I had to wipe them with the back of my hand.

I sniffled. Sometimes I get congested in the morning after sleeping. _And_ after waking up really, really early for ... for I don't know why.

"You were trying to what, Sophie?" Lauren asked calmly.

I don't know what I hated more, Lauren being mean to me, or Lauren being so cool and mature and patronizing.

"Nothing," I muttered.

I wiped my eyes.

"Uh, huh," Lauren said dubiously.

I didn't hear anything for bit, then I heard typing, so I looked back at the screen.

Lauren was typing a message out on the screen, looking at me intently.

An IM message showed up in the skype window.

_I want you._

I looked at the words, then looked back at Lauren's intense eyes.

I started laughing, and then I just couldn't stop.

Lauren's intensity became thoughtful, then she was the one who looked hurt.

I chucked. "You sure have a funny way of showing it, vaquera!" I exclaimed.

Lauren looked at me confused. "I ... I don't know what that ..."

But she didn't finish her sentence. A young, olive, thin, but well-toned man, boy, actually, in similar get up as Lauren turned from his buddies and laughed. "She's got you pegged, Lauren, hey?" Then he turned to me, smiling "Hey, chica! ¿Cómo está?"

I smiled back at him and bit my lip. I spoke a bit of Filipino, but it has a lot of Spanish words, what with four-hundred years of Spanish occupation, so I knew what he meant.

I responded, in kind, in my language: "Kumusta!" I said smiling.

Lauren looked between us. The boy's sewn-on name strip gave his name as "Jiminez."

Jiminez turned to Lauren, letting her in, "Vaquera means cowgirl, so just rein it in there, huh?" He turned back to me. "She is a wild one, our Lauren, isn't she?"

I blushed and looked away demurely. "I'm sure I don't have any idea what you're talking about," I said firmly, but it was hard to hide the smile trying to force itself back onto my lips.

Lauren was a wild one in more ways than one, and probably in more ways than he knew.

... unless she knifed the guys in the barracks, too. You know: for fun.

And ... she outed herself to me. Did she do that with her buddies? They all probably hit on her, right? Unless they were married (or ... I don't know, she said she'd be gone for more than a month; some married men had a wandering eye). You can only say 'no' so often, to so many people, before they ask questions.

Did she answer? What was the policy these days? Was it still 'Don't ask, don't tell' or ... what?

Yes, Lauren was a wild one.

Jiminez smiled. "And she's totally deaf," he said. "She can't hear a word I'm saying."

My eyes widened in shock. "Really?"

He laughed. "Yeah, check this out!" He was standing slightly behind her. "Hey, vaquera," he whispered, addressing Lauren, "did ya want me to take you to my bunk and ..." he began.

But then Lauren addressed me. "Excuse me. I have to take care of some light work," she said coolly.

Then she hauled off a roundhouse so vicious and fast that skype couldn't track her. One second she was sitting there, and then the very next her fist connected to Jiminez' stomach. _WHAM!_ He flew back, total surprise on his face, and he slammed into the wall, falling into a heap.

He flew up. "How the _fuck_ did you ..." he shouted.

_"Language!" _Lauren snarled, then indicated me: "Ladies present." I could see the smirk in her posture. "Next time, don't be in the camera view when you're talking shit, dumb ass."

She turned back to me, smiling, then she turned grave.

"He was telling you I'm hard of hearing," she said. It wasn't a question.

I looked between her and Jiminez. He looked okay, being helped back to the table by one of his buddies, throwing Lauren a death glare, then his mood lightened, and he laughed with his friends laughing at him getting flattened by a 'girl.'

"Yes," I said, disbelief on my face. "He said you were totally deaf!"

The corner of Lauren's lips twitched up. "Mostly true," she said. "I lost most of my hearing in this ear." She indicated her right ear, "and lost some in the other ear, you know, when a grenade blows up near you ... it's loud." Then she looked away, and added: "among other things."

"Oh," I said.

Now it made sense. Back at the bar, I thought she had fallen asleep, but now I saw maybe she didn't even hear me. And then when I woke her, she knifed me, because I had surprised her. I wanted to wake her quietly, and I guess I just was too quiet for her to hear at all.

"But you can hear me?" I said.

"Yeah," she said. "It's better if I can see you when you're talking." Then she shrugged. "I have to concentrate more to listen now, and it's a pain in the ass. Gives me headaches."

"Oh," I said.

"But I'll get disability for the rest of my life when I'm done with my hitch," she said, then added a toneless: "Yay!"

Everything for Lauren was painted in grey tones, she didn't look for a silver lining. That's how she saw the world: it was all grey, ... even silver.

"Oh," I said quietly, but I saw that she 'heard' me. Lauren paid attention to me, with her eagle eyes, unlike other people, her stare was intense, and her attention was scary.

"Well, I guess," I added, "it's a good thing you didn't get hit by the grenade, that you're okay."

Lauren's eyes narrowed. She drummed her fingers for a second.

"Yeah," she said coldly, "I'm doing just fine, just ... _swell._ That's what you skyped to find out. Well, _ta-dah!" _she crowed in mock joy. "Lauren's doing _'okay.'_ We've established that. Anything else, or are we done here?"

If she had reached through the screen to slap me, it would have stung less. I blinked, shocked, holding back the tears. "Uh," I stuttered, "uh, I ..."

I looked at her stoney face. "No," I whispered, "nothing else."

I couldn't look at the screen anymore.

"Good," she barked, and I looked to see her moving her mouse, I guess to close the connection.

"Lauren, what did I say?" I pleaded.

She glared at me. "For your information," she snarled harshly, "I _was_ hit by that grenade. They pulled two pieces of shrapnel out of my deflated lung, and, yes, I'm lucky I wasn't hit ... _bad. _Yes, I'm lucky I didn't lose my arm. I'm 'lucky' that I can't breathe anymore like a normal person, and I can't hear anymore like I used to. I'm _so_ god-damn lucky, but what about the five guys on my team that bought it, huh? Were they lucky? Were their families lucky or their parents lucky, huh? You happy for me, 'cause I got lucky, and I just happened to walk into your bar, so you know me, but what about those other guys? Nobody cares. Nobody cares what we're doing over here and people die, not every day, maybe, but still, twenty-thousand U.S.A. troops have bought it, but nobody cares except their families, and you say I'm lucky, so I should be happy about that?"

"Um," I said.

I had now utterly failed to hold back the tears.

"Um, no. I guess not. I'm sorry for ... I'm sorry for ..."

I looked away, just so ... _sad. _So sad and hurt.

I tried to call Lauren and make sure she'd be okay, but all my call did was to make her angry and hate me more.

"You're sorry for ...?"

Lauren left the question hanging.

"I don't know," I whispered. "I guess ..."

"I can't hear you, Soph," Lauren said.

I looked back at her. She didn't say that harshly. She said it ... factually, like: this is her life now. She can't hear a whisper, so I had to speak up.

Her hearing mostly gone, half the world was closed off to her, half the world I took for granted.

"I said," I said, "I wish I could do something to help."

"Why?" she demanded.

Her question confused me. "What?" I asked, perplexed.

"Why do you want to help me, Soph?" she pushed, not one trace of understanding from her, just all American pride and aloofness.

I just sat there, silenced by her righteousness.

"Yeah," she said in quiet anger, "good reason. Well, Soph, you can't help. That's why we're here. We're here so you can be there and have your bar and your computer time and your long 'fun-filled' days and your long, peaceful nights where you can sleep under a roof and in a bed of all things, and not have to set up a twenty-four hour permitter. We're here so that stuff doesn't come home again. That's what you can do. Just stay there and get back to your life pre-Lauren, and have fun living your good-ol' American dream."

"Lauren," I said, but too late.

She had cut the connection. I was left staring at a blank skype screen.

I wish I could say I couldn't believe it.

But the evidence was right there. Lauren told me off then cut me off.

I just sat there, stunned, for a minute, looking at my laptop, hating her ... hating myself.

I hated her for telling me the truth, as she saw it. I hated her for not taking my sympathy, but demanding, instead, why I would even offer it.

I hated her so God-damn much for being so mean to me. Nobody else was that mean to me, ever. Why did she have to be mean to me for trying to be nice to her?

I got up from my laptop, tears falling from eyes, and went to close my laptop, and leave, crawl back into bed, or crawl into the shower for a good, long cry, and then ...

... and then my dreamy American life. A joke. Another thing Lauren called me out on, I was living my pointless life, day-to-day, without reason while she risked her life over there for it, and why?

There was no 'why,' that was the problem. And I was super-pissed at Lauren for pointing that out. Why did she have to single me out like that?

I didn't know why to that, other than that Lauren was just a mean ... meanie, and that's what she was. Combat or no, she was just being mean to me, and why? Did she just come into my bar looking for somebody to pick on, and I was the lucky sucker that night?

_"You're so welcome for the cookies, Lauren!"_ I screamed at my screen, and made to slam it shut.

It rang, making me start, almost screaming, scared, like it heard me.

The dialog window came up: "Incoming call from xxx," giving a military looking identifier, then the buttons, "(Accept) (Accept with video) (Decline)"

I was so tempted.

I was so tempted just ... _not _to do anything, just close my laptop and walk away.

Then, after I stopped myself from doing what I really, _really_ wanted to do, I had another choice.

I didn't want to show my face, my heartbroken face, to Lauren, but I so wanted to see hers as she made her apology, and I couldn't imagine her talking to a blank screen, apologizing, for more than a half a second without her losing it again.

And she'd _better_ apologize, and for more than half a second, and it had _better_ be _good._

So freaking good that I'd ... I don't know, ... ask her to marry me, so I could laugh in her face when she said 'yes,' plaintively.

See how it feels for her, hurting like she hurt me.

I accepted the call, with video.

There was a soldier on the screen. Somebody I didn't know.

"Uh," I said, "I'm sorry, I think you got the wrong ... number?"

Is that how you say it?

"No," he said, "you're the cookie girl."

I was suddenly very cautious. "I'm sorry," I said carefully, "who are you?"

"I was on patrol with Lauren when we were hit," he said.

He didn't give his name, but I could see it on his shirt: "Novak."

Plain, white man, brown eyes, brown hair. Army, that's all I could tell about him.

I could be cheap and say they all looked the same, because they did, from a distance: all Army green.

"Oh," I said.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I couldn't help but overhear the conversation, and ... I want to apologize for Lauren."

"She can apologize _herself!"_ I hissed angrily.

He held up his hands. "And she will, or she won't. The thing is, we're going on patrol tomorrow, and we could get hit again, and she may not be lucky this time."

He looked to see if I got it.

He pressed forward. "Lauren's a good kid, it's just that ... Look, okay, I've seen this: when daddy doesn't love you, nothing you do is good enough."

"That's your take on it?" I asked coldly.

He shrugged. "Yeah, and she's really, really hard on well, you, and I'm sorry about that, but on everybody else, me, Jiminez, everybody, but ..."

Novak paused. "Well, you can see it; she's really hard on herself. But she's a good kid after you break through that, and it wasn't just one kid with a grenade. I don't know what she told you, but we all would've been dead if she hadn't acted quickly. She dropped three of them and gave us time to regroup and to return fire, and after she got patched us up, she drove us back to the FOB. If she didn't do her job, we all would've been dead."

He shrugged again.

I wouldn't look at Novak. I hated him, too, for defending his patrol-mate.

"She doesn't have be so mean," I said. "I just wanted to ... make sure she was okay, is that some kind of crime? No, it isn't, but I get attacked because I care? Why?"

Novak wouldn't answer for a while.

"She just doesn't trust anybody," he said, "it takes her time, a lot of time. I think she got dealt a bad hand, she won't talk about it, but if ..."

He stopped.

"'If' what?" I asked, and I hated myself for asking.

"Look," he said, "I don't know what's between you two."

_"Nothing!"_ I said hotly.

He frowned. "Yeah," he said disbelievingly. "I don't want to know, but ... if you want to break through to her, and show her you've got her back, then she's got yours, and you will never find a more loyal friend in the world."

He paused. "I don't know if that means anything to you, but for us, Lauren is the most trustworthy person we have on out team. You know what she's capable of, and you know, with Lauren on your team, you're sure she'll perform under fire. She does what she says, and she's not going to let you down."

"I'm sure that's great in the Army and all, ..." I said bitingly.

"Yeah," he said, "it doesn't mean anything to you."

"It does, actually," I corrected him, "My dad was on a ... team? like that with Ted, and they were friends for life."

"So you do know," he said.

I shrugged.

"What price can you put on that?" he asked. "A friend for life who does what she says and is loyal to that friendship?"

I shrugged again, petulantly.

"Well, anyway," he said regretfully, "I just wanted to say that."

"I wish there was som-..." I began, but then I paused, remembering what he said earlier.

How did he know I was the 'cookie girl'?

I asked him this: "How did you know I was the coo-... I mean: how do you know I sent the cookies to Lauren?" I asked. "Did she show around the pictures?" I felt my anger heating my face.

"No," he said. "Lauren opened the box and said, 'Guys! Cookies!' and we basically mobbed the care package. You see, MREs and the chow here isn't gourmet, if you can imagine. Then somebody said, 'Hey, who's the hot chick?' and ..."

Novak grimaced. "Lauren grabbed the pics, but not before a few of they guys saw them. Good thing they weren't ..." He paused. "Good thing they were just pictures of you cooking, because I don't think Lauren was expecting anything at all."

"Oh," I said, then sadly, "did she throw them away, or something?"

Novak looked at me blankly. "Not my conversation and not part of my pay grade."

"Well," I said hotly, "you tell Lauren ..."

He held up his hands. "Nah-uh, I'm not a messenger-boy, either. You tell her yourself."

"Like she'll ever talk to me again," I said, pissed.

"Maybe she won't," he said.

"Gee, thanks!" I bit off sarcastically.

He smiled, but there was no emotion in it. "You don't get it: she might not because there were twenty-two deaths last week when a transport helo hit the ground hard. The Taliban isn't the only one out to get us."

So now I was supposed to feel bad that Lauren hung up on me?

Life was so unfair.

And so was death. Twenty-two deaths in a helicopter? Twenty-thousand dead total? I didn't know that. How could I not know this?

"I just wish there was something I could do," I lamented.

"More cookies?" he offered.

"Ha," I said sadly.

"You should have seen her face light up when she got your care package, and what was in it? Home made cookies? You can't buy that out here for gold!"

"Really?" I said.

"Oh, yeah!" he said. "Send another package ... that is, if you want."

"But you're leaving tomorrow!" I said.

"So she'd get it when she got back," he said.

"Oh," I said. "There is that."

"Yeah," he said.

"Look," he said, "I gotta go, there's a queue here, but, if you are sending, maybe send those sanitizing wet wipes?"

"Why?" I said.

"Running water," he said. "We have well water just for drinking, but that's it. We have to use sand to clean, so things get ... you know ... funky after a while."

"Oh," I said, then: "ick."

He chuckled.

"But you've got running water there, right?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, "here we do, but when we go back on patrol they'll be very welcome."

"'Back'?" I asked.

"Somebody's got to relieve the patrol that relieves us; we're not paid to sit around and play cards all day."

"Oh," I said.

"'Kay," he said, and made to break the connection.

"Hey," I said.

He waited.

"Thanks for," I said hesitantly. "Thanks for calling me and explaining. It helped... a little bit."

"Sure," he said.

"Be careful out there," I whispered sadly. "Don't do anything stupid."

"Yes, Mom." He smirked.

I blushed.

"Good thing you have that big gu-... rifle, I mean," I said, correcting myself quickly.

He looked down at his rifle. "I have something better than that. Lauren's on our team."

He smiled at me and cut off the call.

I looked at the blank screen for a while.

I sighed, slumped back into bed, and was out as soon as I hid myself under my blanket.

I hate Lauren so much. She's so mean to me.

And I thought to myself a little list: more cookies, wet wipes, ... and maybe a few more pics, and I slept.

**and then ...** (A/N: This is another way of saying 'this is what happened after we faded to black for this chapter') (but I think 'and then ...' is more concise, n'est-ce pas?)

I was awoken by a now-familiar sound.

I lay in bed looking up at the ceiling for a second, not wondering who it would be — another soldier again? No. — I knew it would be Lauren, again, this time.

And this time, my little tiny (broken) heart didn't go thump-thump. No, it went: _wah!_

And, I toyed with just ... laying in bed, and letting my laptop, my 'skype-phone' just ring and ring until she got the hint and fucked off and died.

And I knew that's exactly what she would do.

I crawled out of bed and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand (this was becoming a habit that I just _hated)_, and made sure my scarf was securely in place, sighed, and answered the call.

Lauren sat there. Alone.

I didn't know that the Army had green pajamas, too.

You learn something new every day.

What time was it? My laptop said 12:13 pm ... just past noon ... it must be _really_ frikken late in Afghanistan, or really frikken early.

I waited.

Lauren wouldn't ... quite look at me.

"Hey," she said.

I waited. "Hey," I said eventually, lifelessly.

She looked at me then.

I sighed. "What's up, Lauren? Off for your patrol or whatever?"

I hated my voice. I hated the sound of it. I hated out it reached through the screen and hurt her, not by being mean and sarcastic, but by being dull and dead.

Lauren grimaced. "No," she said, "... couldn't sleep. I wanted to call to see if you were okay."

I just stared at her, wordlessly.

_O, the irony,_ I thought. Lauren was calling _me_ back to see if I were okay!

And that, after my call to her for that reason went _so_ well.

_Payback time, bitch!_ I thought spitefully. This could so be the payback she _so_ fucking deserved, and I could just be _so_ mean to her, right now, as she was to me.

I couldn't look at her. I couldn't, because if I did ... I'd see me. I'd see me in the way she reacted to what I said and what I did, and I didn't want to see me.

I hated me now. I hated weak, spiteful, hurting little me, and I didn't want to see me, hurting her.

Because I hated her.

I hated that God-damn Lauren Mallory with all my heart.

"I'm ... fine," I said, looking away. "I'm fine, thank you," I said softly, politely.

Because as mean as I wanted to be to her, to _make_ her feel the hurt I felt from her before, I just ...

I just couldn't.

I wasn't ... I'm not ...

I'm not a baywatch girl, a high-school musical girl, a high-powered preppy executive girl, a queen bee, a mean girl, I'm none of those things that American girls so easily are, so comfortably are. I was born in America, and raised in America ... although the Hawaiian separatists would say differently ... went to school in America ...

But I'm Hawaiian, and I'm Filipino, to my very being, to my very core.

And we just didn't ... do that.

"Oh," she said, "okay, but I meant ..."

And I looked at her, she was motioning her hands around her neck, signifying my scarf.

"Take it off, Sophie," she said softly.

I took in a breath. "Oh!" I said, surprised. Then I touched my scarf gingerly. "Why?" I asked.

"Because I want to see it," she said. "I want to see that you're doing better," she said.

"Oh," I said. I put my hand back down to my side, not removing my scarf. "I'm doing better, Lauren, ... I mean, I hardly even notice it. I'm okay," I said. "Really."

I wondered if I should say 'thanks for asking.' I wondered if I were thankful.

I didn't know.

"Show me," she said, both asking, and not asking.

I touched my scarf again, delicately shyly. "I ..." I said.

Lauren looked expectant. Keen.

"No," I said, and put my hand back down.

Confusion clouded Lauren's brow. "Why not?" she asked.

"'Cause ..." I said.

I didn't quite know why or why not, I just knew that I shouldn't.

"'Cause," I said, trying to work it out on my mind as I said it, "'cause you don't really want to see that I'm better, Lauren, ..."

"Um, yes, actually, I do," she said, slightly miffed.

"No," I said, "I don't think so. I think you want to see that you hurt me, bad, and you want to take that with you when you go out there on patrol and have another reason to beat yourself up, and, I'm sorry," I said, "but I'm not going to give that to you. I'm doing better. If that's what you needed to know, then, well, now you know that."

Lauren frowned, displeased.

I wonder if she ever got told 'no' by somebody who meant it.

She drummed her fingers, restlessly. "You are one ..." she growled.

"One what?" I glared at her.

She chewed at her lip, " ... surprisingly ... I don't know, Soph, you look like you're a pushover, but you're not."

I felt like saying something really sarcastic, like: 'Oh, yeah, I so liked getting knifed and then doing everything you say, because I'm a simple indigenous native that you sophisticated white people can so push around.'

But I didn't think that would help Lauren, going out into the desert to face people who were or weren't mean. She had to have her wits about her, and she didn't need my barbs, stinging her, as she was out there, doing her job to keep the peace over there, so war and terror wouldn't show up over here.

But then I thought of something. "You're surprising, too," I said, the dawning realization almost transporting me from my seat, and my little heart beat went _thump-thump_ at this realization.

"How so?" she asked cautiously.

"You," I said, "You look like this mean, tough girl that nobody can mess with, but you, Lauren Mallory, are a pushover."

She burst out laughing.

She laughed so hard she almost fell out of her seat.

"Yeah, right!" she said when she finally caught her breath. "That's a good one." She chuckled lightly, and wiped the laughing tears from her eyes. "That one I'll have to remember."

"Uh, huh," I said, "'cause you don't believe it."

"Soph," she said, smirking now, "I don't know where you came up with that, but nobody has ever told me that one, okay, because, me?" she pointed to herself, "a push over?"

She chuckled.

"'Cause a pushover wouldn't race me to the hospital, and pay the bill," I said.

"'Cause I knifed you, Sophie," she countered.

I could argue that. She knifed _me,_ yes, but she didn't know it was _me-_me at the time.

"And a pushover doesn't call me back to make sure I'm 'okay,'" I said.

Lauren frowned and shrugged angrily, looking away. "I wouldn't exactly call that being a pushover," she said, unhappy me calling her out on that.

"And a pushover doesn't call me back to say she's sorry," I added.

And I waited.

That one hit right home.

"Oh," Lauren said.

She pursed her lip, looking away. "Um, ..." she said, "I didn't ... call you back to say I was sorry," she admitted weakly.

"I noticed," I said, trying to be frosty, but I couldn't help the hurt seeping into my voice, too.

I waited. "You could say you're sorry now that you're here," I prompted.

The room was dark where Lauren was calling from. It was the same place, but it was empty and dark, deserted, and the only light was the light the laptop shone on Lauren's face.

It made her look ... softer, perhaps, more vulnerable.

"... for being mean to you," she clarified.

I nodded.

She shrugged sadly and looked away.

"Sophie," she said finally, "that's just how I am. I just don't ..." she grasped for words. "I just don't relate to people, I guess. I ... Soph, it's nothing personal; I just don't like people, and they don't like me."

"I'm not 'people,' Lauren," I said.

"I can see that," she muttered regretfully, looking away.

I waited, but nothing happened. Nothing came from her.

"It's so easy, isn't it?" I could barely whisper.

"What?" Lauren said, almost loudly, her voice irritated.

_Oh, that's right,_ I said, _she's hard of hearing._

Funny how she heard what she wanted to hear, and got irritated when she didn't hear what she didn't want to.

"I said," I said more clearly, "'It's so easy,' for you white people, you haoles. You just do what you want to do and step on people in your way. Take what you want and toss us to the side. And it's so not cool being nice, only weak people are nice, like me."

She examined me critically. "I never got anything for being nice," she remarked.

I shut my eyes for a second. "You don't _get_ things for being nice, Lauren! You just are nice because ..." I grasped for words. "Just because! That's why. And it isn't weak to be nice, it takes everything you've got to be nice, when you just so wanna shout at the person, and you just so ... _God!"_

Lauren regarded me levelly. "But, Sophie, that's why I was laughing before. I'm not a pushover, and I'm not nice. That's just not who I am."

_"Well, then, fucking change who you are!"_ I shouted.

"And this is you being nice?" she demanded.

_"No," _I screamed, _"it's not!_ It's me being mean, and I _hate that, okay?_ But it seems to be the only language you people understand: _'get outta my way, important person coming through!'_ The hell! It's not all business, it's not all mean, you don't have to be that way, _really!"_

Lauren thought for a second. "Why?" she said. "Why do you want me to change who I am ... for you?"

My throat caught. "Not for me, ..." I said, "I'm just saying that you should be nicer, is all."

She snorted, "So everybody's life will be so much easier because Lauren is nice now."

"Yes!" I said.

Her eyes narrowed. "I don't care about 'everybody,'" she said, "'Everybody' can fuck off for all I care."

I swallowed, "So you can be mean to me, 'cause I'm just like everybody else."

I don't know why there was a lump in my throat.

Lauren's shoulders fell. "Soph," she said, "look, okay? I hate playing games! Are you like everybody else, I don't know! _WHY _does it matter to you how I treat you or that you have to call me or send me a box of cookies or whatever?"

"Lauren," I said sadly, "why does it matter why for you?"

She sighed, "Seriously! Do you have to answer every question with a question?"

"Okay," I said, "I'll answer for you. You want it to be different, you want _me_ to be different than everybody else because you want to love me and you want me to love you forever, just like that."

Lauren looked nonplussed. "Well, yes ..."

I glowered at her. _Take that, Lauren,_ I thought, _I'm not the stupid little pushover kid you think I am!_

"Well, there's a few problems there," I said angrily. "First, love you? I don't even know if I _like_ you, okay? I don't even know if I like ... I don't know, Lauren, _girls, _okay? and ... the other thing is, okay? It doesn't work like that. You just don't go into a relationship saying, okay, 'hi, we're going to love each other.' You don't wait for all the stoplights to be green before you drive to work, 'cause you'd be so fired after the first week when you never showed up!"

"Wow," Lauren said, impressed. "Where did this all come from?"

"Dunno," I said looking away, blushing "... may be a pushover, but guess I got something in me."

"More than something," she said admiringly.

I blushed more.

"The thing is, Soph," Lauren said. "Every relationship I've had have been ... I mean, it was either a business arrangement where I got what I wanted and he got what he wanted, or when I did, finally, go looking for love, it just ... never worked out."

"That's 'cause you weren't looking for love, really," I said.

"How so?" she demanded.

"You were ... how do I say it?" I thought about it. "You were _requiring_ that this relationship be perfect from the get-go, and who can live up to that pressure? You just don't see this knight in shining armor pull up in his whatever and you say, 'Yup, there's the man for me!' 'cause of his smolderingly good looks, 'cause he could be all Dexter-serial killer or gay or both."

"Tell me about it," Lauren rolled her eyes.

"You dated a serial killer?" I asked, shocked.

"No, gay. He was hot and on the football team and ..." she sighed. "I had such a crush on this guy: nice, polite, ... just perfect in every way, ... and so, so very gay."

"Bummer," I said.

"Yeah," she said regretfully, "and super-embarrassing for both of us, when I put the moves on him ... and ..."

Her hand made a plane-crashing motion.

"Oh," I said.

Then: "Are you crushing on me?"

I barely got the words out audibly.

Lauren was quiet for a while.

"I don't know, Sophie," she said sadly. "I just don't ... want my heart broken. Again. Just not up for it."

"So you want some assurance before you even try again," I said.

"Soph, I've tried _a lot._ And I mean a lot, and ... it's just never worked, so I just think ... it just doesn't work. For me."

"You can't live like that, Lauren; each time it's a different person, so you have to ..."

"But it's always the same me," she said regretfully.

"So," I said, "change you."

Lauren looked at me for a second, then she smirked.

"You're good," she admitted grudgingly, a smile teasing up the corner of her lips.

"No, I'm awesome," I whispered.

Then I blushed.

"Ah, hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" Lauren laughed, almost cackling. "Somebody found her moxie. Humble much, there, Soph?"

"It's not bragging if it's the truth," I said, blushing more, not looking at her.

"Ah!" she almost shouted. "I love it when you get all ..." she moved her shoulders back then wagged her head proudly.

I stuck my tongue out at her, but I was pleased.

"I ..." I said. "I like it better when you're smiling," I said shyly.

"Uh, huh," she said doubtfully. "So, look, Soph, I'm going to hit the sack for a couple hours, then we're off, okay?"

"After you say you're sorry," I reminded her primly.

Lauren scowled, she looked away angrily, glowering.

"Lauren ...?"

"(sorry)"

She didn't even hardly whisper it, she almost just mouthed it out, almost spat out the word.

"For ...?" I pressed.

Her eyes turned back to me and were glaring. "Fer ..." she gasped. "Fer being mean t'ya."

She looked away again, angrily.

"Thank you!" I breathed out.

Lauren looked back, still very unhappy.

"Was that so hard?" I said in my baby-girl voice.

Lauren's face began to twist up, and it looked like she was going to tell me _exactly_ how hard it was for her.

"Don't answer that!" I said quickly.

Lauren snarled something under her breath.

"So, next step," I said business-like, "you won't have to do this so much if you're not mean anymore, so try being nice to people, huh?"

"Ha!" she burst out, "like that's gonna ever happen!"

"Well," I said sweetly, "you could practice on me, you know, on your next phone call or whatever when you get back."

"If I get back," she corrected.

"Why do you do that, Lauren? Why do you have to dwell on death like that?" I said.

Lauren shrugged. "Because it's a reality out here, Soph."

"And you volunteered to go back again ... why?" I asked.

"The land is different," she said thoughtfully. "The people are different. They're living in conditions no American would ever put themselves in, poverty, hardship, harsh environment, but ... they're more honest. They don't play games. Or maybe they do, but the language thing, I mean: I don't know any ... Afghani? Is that the word? And they know hardly any English, so we don't have this complex 'oh, who are you and what do you do?' game people play with each other back there. And ... they're different with each other. I like it here. I know what's coming at me, and I don't have to wade through pride and lies and the shit that I have to when I'm in the States. I don't have to prove myself to anyone but me."

"You didn't have to prove yourself to me," I said.

Lauren looked at me sharply. "Meaning what?"

"Uh," I said surprised, then I blushed. "Meaning, um, nothing. Never mind."

"Uh, huh," she said. "Well, I'm off to bed," then, quietly, "thanks for ... thanks for ... talking with me again."

"Lauren," I said.

"Yeah?" she looked at me cautiously.

"I'm sending another box, you know, cookies, and stuff, and wet wipes, ... I get that they help with not much water?"

"Somebody's been doing her homework, I see," Lauren sounded pleased.

I bit my lip. "Did you want me to send anything else? Did you need feminine care products ... I mean, more than a month out there..."

I blushed.

Lauren chuckled. "Nah, Army's got me covered there. I think they finally realized men and women are different in some ways."

She was smirking.

"Oh," I said. "Okay. But did you want anything else?"

Lauren thought for a second. "Beef jerky," she said.

"Uh, what?" I said, surprised.

She laughed. "Not for me. The guys go crazy over it. I guess it's all manly being out in the desert and mountains chewin' on your beef jerky like a man with a big gun in your hand."

"I thought they were called rifles," I said, confused.

"No," she smiled widely.

Then she took her hand and put it over her crotch and made jerking motions.

"Guys: jerking their big guns."

She wagged her eyebrows.

"Okay," I said disgusted, "that's just TMI."

"What?" she said. "It's just what guys do. You know." She paused, considering. "Not just guys do it, either, you know."

"Okay!" I said. "Okay! Got it! Thank you!"

Lauren smirked. "You're really cute when you're blushing, you know that, Soph?"

"Gee! Thanks!" I said in my innocent little-girl's voice, an edge in my voice, covering over my embarrassment.

"So, you ever ..." Lauren began suggestively.

I cut in sharply. "This conversation is _so_ not going there, Lauren, okay? Good night, already? Get some sleep."

Lauren smiled. "'Kay," she said. Then she looked forlorn. "It's what? Noon there? So, what're you gonna do?"

I shrugged. "No plans actually. Owning the bar, sometimes I have to take care of orders or business, you know, the books and stuff, but most days I have to myself. I don't have to go to a job or anything, so I can do whatever I want."

"Sounds like the life," she observed.

"Eh," I said. "It is, and it isn't. You don't get days off and you don't get sick days, so when everybody else is going to a movie, you just ... can't. Doesn't make for having a social life ..." I grimaced, "... at all."

I shrugged.

"Oh," she said. "So what're you doing before you open up today, then?"

I shrugged again. "Nothing. No plans." I looked at her apologetically. "I'm not really an ... interesting person, Lauren. My life's pretty ..." I looked away then whispered, "pretty dull, actually."

Lauren was quiet. Then she said softly. "Then along came me."

I looked back at her quickly. "Oh, I don't think you're all that, Lauren Mallory."

I think she had the big-head disease a lot of haoles have.

"Oh, little Soph," she purred, "I am _so_ all that."

She smirked triumphantly.

Okay, I corrected myself, she _definitely_ had the big-head disease.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, whatever. I don't know about all that."

"I do," came her confident reply.

_"Jeez!" _I exclaimed, "you ever take that intensity down a notch?"

She tilted her head to the side slightly, smiling. "Some girls find it hot."

"Yeah, like who?" I demanded.

She lifted her eyebrows at me and smiled.

"Gah!" I stuck out my tongue in embarrassment.

"Anything to make you blush, baby," she said sultrily.

"Okay, already!" I shouted, making her laugh more, "Get some rest already!"

"Okay," she said easily, then her intensity kicked in again. "Do one thing for me, please, Soph?"

I looked at her carefully. "What?" I said cautiously.

I wasn't agreeing. I was just saying 'what' to see what she was on about.

"Do something ..." she thought for a second. "Do something out of the ordinary today. Do something extraordinary. Something ... fun. For me? Soph? Please? It'll make my otherwise grueling day."

"How will you know if I do?" I said.

She shrugged. "I just will."

"'Cause you know everything?" I said suspiciously.

"Well, ..." she said pleased at being found out.

"You ..." I glared.

Somebody needed to that that supremely confident warrior woman down a peg or two, I swear.

"Please, Soph, huh?" she begged.

Ugh. Begging. My one weakness... besides Ben and Jerry's.

"Okay, okay, all right, already!" I said, annoyed. "I'll do something ... whatever-different today, whatever the hell that is!"

Lauren's face burst into sunshine. "Thanks!" she exclaimed.

She was a real looker when she did that: just be joyful, like that.

"Okay, good night, Lauren," I scolded this young-girl-child angrily, "get some sleep."

"'Kay," she said, still smiling.

"Sweet dreams," I said sweetly.

Her smile became a bit warmer, and then she was smiling to herself ... almost sadly.

I looked at her, confused. What did I say that made her so pensive?

She smiled back at me. "They will be," she said. "I'll be dreaming of you."

I gaped.

"G'nite, Soph," she said softly.

And she was still smiling as she cut off the connection.

* * *

**A/N: **It can neither be confirmed nor denied that army _panties_ are green or not green, as I can neither confirm nor deny that I have or have not been in a position to verify said facts.

Lauren was, of course, in full Army nighty uniform at this time, so Soph can neither confirm nor deny the color of Lauren's Army panties, either, as they were covered with standard issue army night shirt and standard issue army night pants. So, Soph was not privy to Lauren's private unmentionables.

At present.


End file.
